I have up to date version of Virtual Box running on Windows 8.1. The host key isn't responding. Changing the host key in Preferences > Input dozens of times did nothing to resolve the issue. The issue persists across different virtual machines.
To top it off, one of the virtual machines is stuck in scale mode. Without the host key, I can't find any way to get out of scale mode. I can't even find a config file to force it out of scale mode, and all the GUI options are hidden away in scale mode...
Does anyone have a solution to either problem?
2 Answers
Solved my issue. The issue is with a slew of Windows 8.1 updates that are affecting a number of other keyboard commands as well, including breaking the Shift key functionality of Synergy (issue tracker 1, issue tracker 2) and breaking alt code characters (the character only appears after the next keypress and instead of it, if at all. Possibly other programs are affected.
The list of broken Windows updates is long. For me specifically it was KB2993651. Others have reported different patch numbers. Sometimes multiple patches have to be uninstalled. See the Synergy issue trackers above for more details.
I wasted an hour on a very similar problem because I forgot I had the on screen keyboard open. Apparently VirtualBox and the on screen keyboard don't like each other. This might cause a similar issue.
