Make VirtualBox use full screen size in Windows 8

Question

I'm running the enterprise evaluation (Build 9200) of Win8 and VirtualBox 4.2.4 r81684 and my actual display is 1920x1200. When I use the host-F key to enter full screen mode, the best I can configure in Windows is 1600x1200 which is fine, but I'd rather get the whole screen in play rather than see a letter boxed OS.

First I tried running the Install Guest Additions but Windows didn't run any installers that I could see as described in the VirtualBox documentation.

I have allocated the maximum amount of RAM (256MB) to the Display Video Memory and don't see any way to load drivers after searching the VirtualBox documentation. I can enable or disable 3D and 2D Acceleration and these settings do not affect the outcome. I've set the monitor count at 1 and not enabled the Remote Display server. Since special things happen in each corner, Fitt's law is making it a pain to hit the targets for the corners to explore the UI whether I'm running the OS in a window or full screen.

Am I missing a setting somewhere in Windows or VirtualBox to fill in my true display resolution since it's not sensing it correctly? I'm open to hacking a driver file or other steps if needed to get the correct resolution set.

Answer 1

1. Close your virtual machine.

2. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\.

3. Hold Shift and right-click in the blank space of the window.

4. Select Open Command Window Here.
   
   

5. Type VBoxManage.exe setextradata "W8 VM NAME HERE" CustomVideoMode1 1920x1200x32.
   
   

6. Restart your VM. Now you will be able to select 1920x1200 resolution.
   
   

Answer 2

With my setup, the installation of the Guest Additions by hand was required. Even requesting it from the UI didn't cause Win8 to see or run the installer.

Folks on a Windows host can use the steps here, but for someone on a non-windows host OS, you will need to drop the VBoxGuestAdditions.iso into the Virtual Media Manager so it gets mounted as an Optical disk.

In my case, it was located (as described) in /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS

From there, the shortest distance for me was to go to the desktop, then open the library folder in the bottom left, and navigate first to the computer (in the sidebar) and then to the Optical disk.

The installer itself ran correctly in Win 8 and prompted for a reboot. Once the guest OS rebooted entering full screen mode and waiting several moments for the drivers to scan the display did the trick. Win8 correctly adjusted things without any need to open the screen resolution Control Panel.

Answer 3

You need to ensure that the guest has sufficient video memory to go full screen. You might also want to enable 2D/3D acceleration. When there is enough, switching to fullscreen will work as usual. Settings:

Answer 4

Screen resoultion can be set manually by using the following virutalbox command

"c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" controlvm "%YOUR_V_HOST" setvideomodehint 1920 1200 32

This command takes effect immediately on a running guest

Answer 5

Apart from installing the Guest Additions plugin, note that the maximun display size may be capped in VirtualBox general preferences panel:

Also, check autoResize option and VirtualBox will automatically set the display size as you resize or maximize the window.

Answer 6

VirtualBox fpr Mac OSX instructions:

Shutdown your VM, open terminal, find the name of your Virtual Machine and add as many custom resolutions as you want:

cd /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/MacOS/
./VBoxManage list vms
./VBoxManage setextradata "Windows VM Name" CustomVideoMode1 1920x1080x32
./VBoxManage setextradata "Windows VM Name" CustomVideoMode2 1280x1024x32
./VBoxManage startvm "Windows VM Name"

Answer 7

If you do not see the custom resolution in the display resolution menu inside Windows 8 after adding the CustomVideoMode then rollback the drivers. I just installed the guest additions a couple of days ago inside of Windows 8 and for some reason they do not recognize custom video modes. When I rolled back the video driver to the one before guest additions was installed I saw my custom resolution there. Hope this helps if anyone has that problem.

Answer 8

What to do, in more detail (if host is Windows 7):

• Go to the start menu and open the control panel.
• Select appearance and personalization.
• Select display.
• On the left side of the screen there will be more options, select adjust resolution.
• Now there will be three selection box thingies. find the one that says resolution and look at what the setting is, mine was 1366x768, memorize that selection. or write it down.

• Go and look at the top post on this page with the screenshots. Then do what that post tell you to, except for the command line part replace 1920x1200x32 with the number you got earlier, but make sure there is still a x32 at the end, so when you type the finished thing in the command prompt it should look like this:

  VBoxManage.exe setextradata "The guest OS here, including the quotes" CustomVideoMode1 ####x###x32

If it look like that, then click enter and start up your virtual machine.

Answer 9

Sometimes, simple solution could be:

Answer 10

Install Guest Addition in safe mode, it is a lot more complicated then needs to be to get to safe mode. follow instruction at how to geek.

http://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-safe-mode-on-windows-8-the-easy-way/

after reboot I did go full screen (host + f), scale mode (host+c) full screen, both work as expected... seamless mode (host + l) while works, it does not work correctly, unable to access win 8 on screen features

Peace,

Answer 11

If you still can't get it to work after following @Elmo's instructions, as in my case, go to View menu of the running virtual machine and click on Auto-resize Guest Display or just press Host+G. But you still have to do what @Elmo suggested first.