How To Open VirtualBox Guest OS Directly

Opening guest OS in VirtualBox requires an extra click. You have to open VirtualBox OSE from Accessories and click start to run guest OS.

Instead of this you can create a launcher to directly open VirtualBox guest OS.
So just a single click and your guest OS will start running.

The backend for this is powerful VBoxManage CLI command. It can do lot more than the GUI can do. For example check how to hide menubar and statusbar in VirtualBox.

Now to open guest OS directly from panel do the following. I'll assume your guest OS name as "guestos1"

1. Right click empty area in panel and choose Add to Panel
2. Select Custom Application Launcher (its on top)
3. Fill the dialog box it brings as:
   
   
   • Type: application
   • Name: guestos1
   • Command: VBoxManage startvm "guestos1"
   • Comment:  Start guest os names "guestos1"
     
   
   
4. Click the icon and choose icon of your choise
5. Click OK.

Now your launcher is ready to open guest os directly.

Hide Menubar and StatusBar in Virtual Box

There is no option in VirtualBox to hide Menubar and Statusbar. Many people likes to hide them so that they can get maximum space in their guest OS. Virtual Box provides VBoxManage command. It can do all the things that VirtualBox GUI can do. Furthermore it can help us in getting rid of Menubar and Statusbar. Here is a nice example of other VBoxManage commands.

Now to disalbe/hide Menubar and Stautsbar open terminal and type:

VBoxManage setextradata global GUI/Customizations noMenuBar,noStatusBar

where guest_os_name is the name of the virtual machine. To see the name or UID you cau use:

VBoxManage list vms

After running the first command your VirtualBox guest window will have no Menubar or Statusbar.