How can I switch WIndows 7 to more than 256 colors?

Question

Installed Windows 7 in Virtual Box, and started old (from 1999) game in it. All worked fine, but on exit from game, Windows switched to 256 colors. And it's virtually unusable. Some buttons are black on black.

Is there any way to switch windows again to normal 24/32bit color depth?

Solution 1

You can change it by:

1. Right clicking desktop
2. Clicking "change resolution"
3. Clicking "advanced settings"
4. On the "monitor" tab at the bottom you can change the colors.

Solution 2

From VirtualBox admin, adding more "Video memory" to this Windows 7 instance, resolved my issue with 1920x1080 @ 32bit. It was 64MB, now 128MB.

Comments

[mdgrech]

Ah. So it's select. It displayed as a text for me :( Thanks.

[Supercereal]

NP, I was honestly expecting to troubleshoot an issue with the Vbox experimental 3d acceleration driver. Glad it worked out this easy...

[mdgrech]

Well, not so fast - apparently - the select in my vbox shows only 256 colors. I was able to find mode change, but somehow - there is no native 1920x1200/24bit. the most in 24bits i can have is 1600x1200. Which is better, but why can I have, as previously, 1920x ?

[Supercereal]

@depesz Nice, Mine is able to do 1920X1080 @ 32bit color so it's not a Vbox limitation. I would suggest turning off 3d acceration and 2d acceleration with the VM off, booting, shutting down, turning it on again, then checking your color settings. This will unload the 3d acceleration driver then reload it again. I have so many weird problems with that driver and Aero enabled.... Also try simply disabling then re enabling Aero.

[mdgrech]

both 3d and 2d acceleration are off. aero is off. and always was.