Unable to turn on seamless mode in VirtualBox

Question

I'm not able to switch to Seamless Mode in VirtualBox with Ubuntu 10.04 or 9.10 as guest OS's. I have tried the seamless mode with XP as guest OS, and it works absolutely fine. The host OS is Windows 7.

I have in-built Via/S3G Unichrome Pro IGP graphics, and I have allocated 30 MB out of 64 MB of graphics memory. I've also 1.5 GB of RAM.

I also tried installing Guest Additions but it still didn't work. VirtualBox version is 4.0.4r70112. The Host+L does not lead to seamless mode. i.e. under the Machine menu in Virtual box window "Seamless mode" is disabled (comes in grey color). How can I get the seamless mode to work? Please help!

Solution 1

For seamless mode (Host+L) Virtual Box Guest Additions of the same program version need to be installed in the guest OS.

How to install Guest Additions see also this answer. In some cases you will simply need to reinstall the Guest Additions if they don't run the way they should.

Solution 2

Turn off Nested Paging in the System tab and restart the guest.

Solution 3

May be you forgot installing the guest additions in the GUEST. For doing so, click in the menu "Devices" in the GUEST window, and choose "install guest additions"

Comments

[Johan Karlsson]

I have the same problem. In one of my virtual boxes it works, but in the other not. Both have Guest additions installed.

[Lefty]

how to look for guest additions in synaptic. is there a package name for it.

[Oxwivi]

Go to Synaptic, after it loads, you'll see a search box in the top right corner. Simply type guest additions there and press Enter.

[Lefty]

Takkat i have installed Virtual box and guest additions of same version. But what problem i have is the Host+L does not lead to seamless mode.

[Takkat]

If I got you right then you are able to select seamless but you can't move the window of a guest Ubuntu program to the desktop of your host?

[Lefty]

i m not able to select seamless mode.

[Lefty]

i have tried all that but still the same problem. Anyways thanks.

[Oxwivi]

@jaggib, did you try install Guest Additions from Synaptic yet?

[Braden Best]

Can confirm that this works. Though it only seems to work with desktops that have panels/taskbars. I can't get dwm, for instance, to work with it.

[whoisearth]

This solved it for me. I didn't realize that you had to install on the actual guest as well.

[Kristopher Ives]

Do not run virtualbox as root.

[Kristopher Ives]

Because running it as root is effectively giving the VM guest full control over your system. Under normal circumstances excluding a massive oversight in the hardware virtualization security (usually VTX) a guest could possibly "break out" but would still be limited in Linux by the restrictions of a user account. Running as root makes it so any guest that does anything to affect the host (guest additions, even if you didn't install them) has root access and can do whatever it want.

[Matthew Wendel]

Very good info @KristopherIves !

[trusktr]

Did not work for me.