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[Resolved] Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 10. Feb 2019, 19:36
by kestryth
I am running Mojave 10.14.2 host on a MacbookPro with VirtualBox 6.0.4 with a Windows 7 Guest and an Ubuntu 14 guest. I've installed the latest Guest additions on both guests, but the resolution for both is stuck really high so the font is tiny. Everything else works; mouse integration, keyboard integration, copy/paste, etc.
I've tried:
changing the resolution from inside the guest, all this does is resize the windows and the font stays tiny (for example in Windows it is 2414 x 1756, according to the system menu)
changing the graphics controller from the VirtualBox Settings Display menu from VboxSVGA to any of the others
Changing the scale factor from the VirtualBox Settings Display menu to 150%
Changing the scale in the Guest from auto to larger size font
in Ubuntu, I tried installing the Guest Additions through the terminal using sudo apt-get, rather than just running from the optical drive; and then installing dkms afterwards separately.
Thanks for any insights.
Re: Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 11. Feb 2019, 06:42
by socratis
00:00:00.953099 DMI Product Name: MacBookPro15,1
How do you like your new 2018 MBPr? Are you missing the <Esc> key?

According to my notes, its native resolution is 2880x1800, but because at such a resolution people would complain, Apple reduces it. The maximum you're getting right now is 1920x1200, aka 1.5x smaller than the original.
What you need to do is
completely shut down both your VMs and then open up Terminal and issue the following commands:
What this does is to delete any options you've set for the ScaleFactor for both your VMs, and then set a global scale factor of 200%.
The individual scale factor is set in the VM Settings » Display.
The global scale factor is set in the VirtualBox Preferences » Display.
Then launch your VMs and things will look normal. I choose for most of my VMs a resolution of 1280x1024, so that they run comfortably as a windowed application (your mileage may vary). If you take such a VM full screen, it will have a resolution of 1920x1200, just like your native OSX.
Re: Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 11. Feb 2019, 15:44
by kestryth
Hi!
Nice to hear from you again.
So far I do not miss the esc button, but I haven't had the new one very long. Usually "esc" lights up on the touch bar, so hopefully I'll have it when I need it.
So these commands fixed the resolution in Windows, but the screen isn't centered in the window. I can only see the upper left quadrant (in perfect resolution) (my log in icon is down located at the lower right).
I have no scroll bars or anything to access the rest of it. So if I had a giant monitor, it would be fine.
The Ubuntu machine asked me if I knew I was staring in low resolution, I said yes, go ahead, and it aborted without launching.
Re: Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 12. Feb 2019, 04:30
by socratis
kestryth wrote:but the screen isn't centered in the window. I can only see the upper left quadrant
Did you change the resolution to 1280x1024 from within the guest as I suggested? And in the "Make text and other items larger or smaller" make sure that you're at the 100% scale.
BTW, where did this VM come from? Doesn't look like you installed it yourself:
00:00:01.231249 File system of '/Users/welkin/Documents/VirtualMachines/Windows_7_x64-disk1.vmdk' is unknown
Re: Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 12. Feb 2019, 14:16
by kestryth
Did you change the resolution to 1280x1024 from within the guest as I suggested? And in the "Make text and other items larger or smaller" make sure that you're at the 100% scale.
I tried to change the resolution within the guest, but it will not change. I can access the menu, and choose 1280x960, but when I apply the settings, the resolution does not actually change.
I am at the 100% scale in the host, I've also tried making it bigger to see if that would fix my guest window problems.
These machines are from my old laptop-- and I did install them myself there--- where I was running Mojave on a 5-6 year old macbook pro, and Virtual Box 5. They work fine on the old system. They both have a bunch of files and obsolete software I need for work, so I just copied the .vmdk files over to the new machine and pointed my new installation of Virtual Box at the files; uninstalled/reinstalled new guest additions and here we are.
Re: Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 12. Feb 2019, 16:14
by kestryth
so didn't realize that I could access the guest resolution through the view menu of virtual box while the machine was running--- between a combination of that menu, the guest's controls, upping the font size and icon size in the guest's accessibility menu, we managed to get them legible.
thanks for your help!
Re: Guest screen resolution stuck on Mac host
Posted: 12. Feb 2019, 18:47
by socratis
So, I can mark this one as [Resolved] then? I think I will, and if you're not happy we can always unmark it...