0

I have several Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machines configured on my Windows 7 host. There are two ways to start a virtual machine: 1) Start the VirtualBox VM Manager, select the virtual machine there and click Start, or 2) Since .vbox files are associated with the VM Manager, I can just click on the appropriate .vbox file to start that particular machine.

I had an icon pinned to my taskbar for the VM Manager executable, and one to a shortcut for each of my VM's .vbox files. That way, I could easily see each of my VMs and my VM Manager on the taskbar and quickly fire up what I needed.

I just updated VirtualBox to the latest version, and the path of the VM Manager pinned icon was no longer correct. So, I unpinned it, and all my other icons became unpinned and disappeared, too. OK, no problem. I pinned the executable, and tried to pin new shortcuts for each of my VMs. However, I discovered a peculiar and frustrating change.

I can no longer pin shortcuts to each of my VMs to the taskbar and have them appear individually. When I go to do so, it insists on pinning it to a list associated with the single VM Manager icon (the program associated to run .vbox files). I wish I could snip a screen capture of what I see when I right click my VM Manager taskbar, but I can't find a way. Suffice it to say, when I right-click it, I see the typical icon and title for the VM Manager program (with the "Unpin this program from taskbar" selection). But above that, there is now a list of VM shortcuts I've pinned. No longer do I have individual icons on my taskbar - there's just the one icon for the VM Manager.

When I drag the VM Manager executable to the taskbar, I'm offered to "Pin to taskbar." When I drag the .vbox file (or a shortcut to it), I'm offered to "Pin to Oracle VM VirtualBox" and, if I do, it "pins" it to the list shown when you right-click it the VM Manager icon.

The general behavior seems to have changed somewhere. I can no longer find a way to pin individual shortcuts of non-executable files to the taskbar. Folders are "pinned" to Windows Explorer. Text files are "pinned" to my editor. In general, non-executable files are "pinned" to the associated executable. I even tried manipulating the contents of the "Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar" folder, and that no longer seems to have any effect.

I'm wondering if anyone else has seen this change, and if anyone knows of a setting somewhere that would let me return to the previous behavior.

Thanks!

Improve this question
2
  • You have rolled back to the previous version to determine if this is connected to something that has changed with the program or something else entirely?
    – Ramhound
    Nov 5, 2015 at 17:12
  • While I discovered the behavior change during an upgrade of VirtualBox, I don't suspect it's really related to VB. But, to make certain, I took your suggestion and rolled back to the previous version of VB. As I suspected, the changed behavior still exists. I suspect it's most likely due to a Windows update. This is a company machine that is set up to automatically apply any and all Windows updates.
    – Captain
    Nov 5, 2015 at 17:35

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

In the VirtualBox machine list, right click the machine you want and select "Create Shortcut on Desktop". From your desktop, drag the shortcut it made to your taskbar. You can now delete the shortcut from your desktop. I hope this works for you as it did for me on Windows 10 with the same shortcut 'menu' issue as you.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .