Can't resize beyond host screen size

[Paul Klapperich]

This appears to be a "broken by design" situation where the VirtualBox GUI thinks it's being smart when really it's just getting in the way and ruining my day.

With normal X windows, I have no trouble making the window wider than my screen resolution. I simply drag the window off the right side of the screen, then grab the left side and drag until it's the width I want, then move it so it displays the portion of the window I want. This is useful if you have dual monitor and want a window that spans the width of both, or for any number of another reasons when it might be useful to have a window wider than the dimensions of a single physical display.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Launch VirtualBox and start a VM.
2. Wait until the VM boots such that guest additions are running (allowing arbitrary VM screen size).
3. Drag the VM window so most of the window is off the right side of the screen.
4. Grab the left edge of the window and drag all the way to the left.

Expected Behavior

1. After step 4, the window will resize to the dimensions you chose and stay that way.

Observed Behavior

1. After step 4, the window STARTS by resizing to the dimensions you chose (this can be observed briefly by the arrangement of the guest's display, especially if content that is based on screen width is maximized).
2. Immediately, the right edge of the VM window snaps to just inside right edge of the screen. The left edge of the VM window snaps to the left edge of the screen. The window is now just smaller the width of the monitor.

The observed behavior is inconsistent with the rest of the software on my computer (Ubuntu 10.04, Gnome DE). This is the first product I've found that presents the observed, rather than the expected, behavior.