Virtual Machine Manager - Screen resolution

eeijlar · June 7, 2011, 3:25pm

Hi,

This is not an OpenSuse specific question, but I thought some of the experts over here might be able to help.

I am running Windows 7 inside Virtual Machine Manager - running on Cent OS 5.6. My problem is that the Windows 7 ‘Window’, is only about half the size of the screen. Is there any change to change the resolution of the OS running inside Virtual Machine Manager?

I have been looking everywhere, but can’t get anything on this one…

jlar

buckesfeld · June 8, 2011, 9:49am

eeijlar wrote, On 06/07/2011 03:36 PM:
>
> Hi,
>
> This is not an OpenSuse specific question,

So it’s probably better asked in a forum more specific to the problem. I’d try the CetOS forums or the forums dealing with your virtualization solution.

Uwe

martin_helm · June 8, 2011, 10:47am

eeijlar wrote:
> I am running Windows 7 inside Virtual Machine Manager - running on Cent
> OS 5.6.
Virtual machine manager is just a frontend, so your VM does not “run in”
virtual machine manager but in the virtualization you have chosen for it
(what is your backend? the manager supports xen, kvm, qemu).
And more explicit do you speak about the resolution when you use the virtual
machine graphical console (which is kind of a vncviewer)?

eeijlar · June 8, 2011, 2:39pm

Hi - thanks for your reply. I am using the qemu backend. I am talking about the size of the Windows 7, window inside the Virtual Machine Manager. I tried starting it with virt-viewer, and it was the same size also. I would just like to make the Windows 7 window bigger.

jlar

martin_helm · June 8, 2011, 3:26pm

I am not familiar with it (running Windows guest in virtual manager), but as
far as I remember I have seen a suggestion that if you use Windows guest you
should use a remote desktop client to access them.
I think rdesktop exists also on centos and the Windows 7 should
automatically adjust its screen size to whatever resolution or the
fullscreen switch you pass to rdesktop.
Please take this with a grain of salt because it is only an educated guess
(in fact I run Window VMs in VMWare and Virtual Box and use rdesktop to
connect to them).

eeijlar · June 9, 2011, 11:00am

Hi - thanks for the reply… finally figured out why I can’t get a higher screen resolution. It’s because Virtual Machine Manager doesn’t give you access to all the KVM functionality. For example, the graphics default to ‘cirrus’, which allows for a maximum resolution of 1024x768, hence the reason why I couldn’t get anything higher than that. There is a work around however, you could use something like the following:

sudo /usr/libexec/qemu-kvm -hda windows7.img -cdrom /dev/cdrom -m 1024 -name “Windows7” -vga std -net nic -usb -net tap,ifname=tap0,script=no

This allows you to specify the -vga option ‘std’. Then in Windows 7, you can adjust the display to anything you want. I think there is also a full screen option. There is an extensive blog post on it here:

KVM network scripts | Shadows of epiphany

/jlar

martin_helm · June 9, 2011, 2:46pm

Glad you solved it and thank you very much for sharing the solution