Higher screen resolution in VirtualBox?

You need to install the VBox guest utilities to add support for the virtualised graphics hardware.

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11 virtualbox-guest-dkms

Previously you might have needed the "ose" versions:

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-ose-guest-utils virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 virtualbox-ose-guest-dkms

Edit: http://www.linuxformat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=103289

1. Start Virtual Box and log into Ubuntu.

2. Hit your host key(right Ctrl by default)so you can get your mouse pointer outside the virtual machine.

3. Go to top of virtual window, click on devices then select Install Guest Additions You will see a window pop up inside Ubuntu showing you that there are some new files mounted in a virtual CDROM drive. One of those files should be VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

You must run the file with some admin permissions so do that this way...

4. Click inside the Ubuntu screen again then go to Applications > Accessories then Terminal. The terminal window is where you will run the file from, but first we must navigate to the correct directory.

5. Type cd /media/cdrom0 (then hit enter, there is a space after cd!)

6. Next type dir (You should seeVBoxLinuxAdditions.run among the files displayed)

7. Finally type sudo sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run (yes, that is a full stop before the slash!)

After you hit enter and it has done its stuff, the files are now accessible from Ubuntu.

8. You now need to reboot the virtual machine or press Ctrl+Alt+backspace.

9. Log onto the Ubuntu desktop and go to System > Preferences then Screen Resolution. You should now have more options than the three low resolution options you had at the beginning of the day!

If the resolution you want is not one of the newly listed ones displayed then follow these steps:

1. Open the terminal window (Applications > Accessories then Terminal)

2. Type sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf (case sensitive)

3. It will ask you for a password which is the same as the one you log in with(see sudo).

4. The text editor loads and you should see a lot of text in the window. First make a backup of this file by going to File then Save as and change the filename to xorgbak.conf

5. You now need to hunt through the text until you see the display resolutions listed. The ones you will be concerned about will be listed under bit depth 24 or bit depth 16 (as these depths are the ones that give you a large array of colors.)

6. The idea here is to have your favorite screen resolution included in this list. Do this by either inserting it before the other listed resolutions in the exact same manner or typing it over one of the others. (you will only need to do this for the ones under bit depth 24 and 16)

7. You must now do a "save as" but be careful here as this time we need to call the file xorg.conf again. If you just hit save here you would have overwritten the backup file you created which is not what we want.

8. Once you have completed the previous step, you are done. Hit Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart your Virtual Box instance, log in and enjoy your new screen resolution options!

Devices > Install Guest Additions, let it run then log out.

When you've been returned to the login screen you'll see it's the full size of your monitor. Log in and you're good to go.

I had the same problem and then found out that if you launch the virtual machine > click "view" on the toolbar > click "auto-resize guest display, then your virtual machine will have the same screen resolution as your own screen.

Once the Vbox Additions has been instaled (and reboot the guest os), press Host + H, then maximise the window, thats sould do the trick..
If not, maybe you are using an old version of vbox (therefore, the Vbox Additions might has an incompatibility..)

Try increasing the amount of RAM allocated to the Virtual Box. Worked for me.

To do this, stop the VM, then in VirtualBox go to the Settings for the VM. Go to the Display section. You can increase the Video Memory there. Mine was 1MB; I increased it to 32MB and that allowed me to use my 24" monitor fully.

• Settings > Video > Video Memory = 128 MB, Enable 3D acceleration = true.
• Install GuestAdditions

• On Host machine, in cmd/bash, run

  VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution any
  

• create /etc/X11/xorg.conf file with content:

  Section "Device"
    Identifier      "Configured Video Device" 
  EndSection
  Section "Monitor" 
    Identifier      "Configured Monitor"
  EndSection 
  Section "Screen"  
    Identifier      "Default Screen" 
    Monitor         "Configured Monitor"
    Device          "Configured Video Device" 
    SubSection "Display"
      Modes "1920x1080" 
    EndSubSection
  EndSection
  

• For running VM:

  Host Key Right Ctrl at default + Home = view full screen.

I have tried to exclude every step except GuestAdditions installation. You need every one of them.

I had the same problem and was able to fix it by using the xrandr utility. I followed this article to fix the issue.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-change-display-resolution-settings-using-xrandr.html

Sometimes this may help you. Give it a try.

I was able to fix this problem by shutting down my VirtualBox virtual machines, quitting VirtualBox, and running this command in a Terminal:

VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/MaxGuestResolution any

Then start VirtualBox back up and the problem should be fixed!

I can tell you how I do this with Mac OS X as the host system. Maybe it will work on Windows too.

• I start ubuntu in VirtualBox
• I open up the terminal on Mac OS X
• and execute "VBoxManage controlvm [name] setvideomodehint 1280 1024 24" (replace [name] with the name of your ubuntu vm)