How to stretch a guest OS on VMware?

Question

I'm running several OSes on VMware. I want to stretch them so I can run them on full screen, but they appear only in the middle. Only one is working and fitting the whole screen. What is the problem? Why is it working for one and not the others?

Solution 1

That one is working because its guest OS has VMware Tools installed and is an OS supported by VMware Player's automatic guest resolution adjustment feature. If you install VMware Tools on the other VMs, they will be able to fill the whole screen. This can be accomplished by selecting "Install VMware Tools" from the VM menu; a CD image of the VMware Tools installation disc will be inserted into the virtual CD drive.

If your guest OS is not supported by this VMware Player feature, there is not a first-party way to force the guest screen to be scaled onto the host. (VMware Workstation does have such a feature, but it doesn't preserve the guest aspect ratio.) See this VMware Community post for a guide on using Display Changer to achieve an effect similar to what you want.

Solution 2

You need to install VMware Tools. You can do this by selecting the VM menu from within VMware and select Install VMware Tools

Comments

[onlyforthis]

Is that required for each VM?

[td512]

@onlyforthis yes

[onlyforthis]

I did not install them on that one. Is it possible they were already installed with the image?

[Ben N]

@onlyforthis Maybe (but it seems unlikely to me); the resizing might also have to do with VMware's virtual display adapter.

[onlyforthis]

It worked. But i thinks it is a headache to install them for each VM. thanks anyway.

[Gman]

Thanks, worked for me. I just reinstalled it and my guest can stretch to host screen. thumb up