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Accepted
Andrew Tomazos
Asked: 2012-06-01 21:02:31 +0800 CST

VirtualBox Windows Key Pass Through To Gnome

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I use a VirtualBox Windows 7 guest in seamless mode on an Ubuntu 12.04 linux host running Gnome 3.

Under normal operation when VirtualBox is not running, pressing the Windows Key on the keyboard launches the Gnome activity panel.

When the Windows guest is running and is in the foreground, pressing the Windows Key opens the Windows menu inside the guest.

Is there anyway to configure it so that the Windows Key will be ignored by the guest, and passed through to the host?

12.04

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Yes. Open the VirtualBox Manager window, and go to "File" menu, "Preferences" (Ctrl-G).

    Under "Input", uncheck the box labeled "Auto Capture Keyboard". There is no need to restart the VM if it's running, so this can be changed "on the fly".

    • 11

  2. ubuntu-20.04 as host and windows-10 as guest here.

    I have similar problem but solve in a different way. I leave my guest fullscreen in a empty workspace and use hot-corners to switch between workspaces (guest and host)

    example

    This are my steps:

    cat workspace.next

    #!/bin/bash
CURRENT_WS=`wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d " " -f 1`
MAX_WS=`wmctrl -d | tail -n 1 | cut -d " " -f 1 `
NEXT_WS=$((CURRENT_WS+1))
if (( NEXT_WS > MAX_WS )); then
    NEXT_WS=0
fi
wmctrl -s $NEXT_WS

    cat workspace.previous

    #!/bin/bash
CURRENT_WS=`wmctrl -d | grep \* | cut -d " " -f 1`
MAX_WS=`wmctrl -d | tail -n 1 | cut -d " " -f 1 `
NEXT_WS=$((CURRENT_WS-1))
if (( NEXT_WS < 0)); then
    NEXT_WS=$MAX_WS
fi
wmctrl -s $NEXT_WS
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