Ubuntu – Can’t see the floating menu of virtualbox virtual machine!

12.04virtualbox

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 32 bit as guest on Windows 7 64 bit. Everything is fine except one thing..when take my mouse pointer near the top edge(I set it at top) can't get the floating menu of virtual box in full screen mode…so I'm not able to minimize my Ubuntu virtual machine. Even worse the ctrl,alt+tab combination to switch out of windows is also not working.

I'm also running Linux Mint 13 Mate as guset where everything is fine so i guess this an Ubuntu problem may be related to compiz etc stuff.

Virtual Box version : 4.2.6

EDIT: guest additions are installed. Before installing additions Ubuntu was running in 1024×768 and now in full wide screen. As far as I remember the floating menu was available when guest additions were not installed.

thanks.

Best Answer

This is still a problem/bug and is references in the VirtualBox bug tracker here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9775

There is a work-around!

While in fullscreen mode in VirtualBox, log out of Ubuntu. When the login screen appears, you should be able to either see the mini-tool bar or you can press the HOST+Home keys to make it visible and it should show up.

I'm running Mint 17 x64 as my guest on my Win7 x64 host. I have the exact same issue with the fullscreen mini-tool bar, but logging out of Mint makes the toolbar appear. Strangely, when I move the fullscreen to my second monitor and log back in, the mini-tool now becomes visible whilst in the desktop environment.

Also: Ubuntu uses Unity and for me Mint uses Cinnamon, both of which are 3D accelerated Desktop Environments. Maybe MATE is not, which is why it works. If you turn of 3D Acceleration in the VBox settings for your guest, the mini-tool bar should work, but then you'll be in software rendering mode in Ubuntu Unity or Cinnamon.