Using VMWare on computer with wide screen

I'm using VMWare for development for years now. I started using it when I had to work simalteniously on several projects that required different versions of same development tools.

I liked it very much so later on I decided to use VMWare at my home laptop as well. But with the great benefit one issue arised. I used to work in my virtual machines using full screen mode. The thing is that at my work I had a PC with regular 4:3 display (at least it was regular size four years ago), but my laptop has a widescreen. For some reason resolutions for widescreens are not available in virtual machine (in my case it should be 1280x800).

After some surfing in the Web and several trials I finally found a solution that works. Today I set up new VM from scratch and ancountered same issue. So I decided to post this solution on the Web. I hope this will help you to save some time solving the same issue.

Here is the solution:

1. Start your virtual machine.
2. Run "Registry Editor" (Start > Run > regedit.exe) in it.
3. Select the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmx_svga\Device0.
4. Add a new string-value key for the desired resolution (RightClick > New > String Value) using the form of Resolution.x for the value name. For example: Name = Resolution.0; Value = 1280x800.
5. Exit "Registry Editor".
6. Shut down your VM.
7. Add max width and height to "vmx" file of your VM as follows: svga.maxWidth = "1280" and svga.maxHeight = "800". Just open this file using Notepad and add strings at the end like this:

8. Uncheck autofit for the guest in VMWare (View > Autofit Guest).
9. Start your VM and set new resolution in "Display Properties".