Enabling OpenGL 2.0 in Windows 10 Guest using VirtualBox

If you have a Windows 10 guest running inside VirtualBox, but are experiencing issues with applications requiring at least OpenGL 2.0, this guide may help resolve the issue.

To start, ensure that you have installed VirtualBox from 'virtualbox.org'(http://virtualbox.org) (not through the Ubuntu repositories). In my case, I had version 5.1.24 r117012 (Qt5.5.1) installed. After installing Guest Additions in safe mode, I enabled both 2D and 3D acceleration within the virtual machine settings.

Despite these efforts, my Windows guest still only reported supporting OpenGL 1.1 when running glview436. This was a problem, as some of my applications required at least OpenGL 2.0 to function correctly.

My host system runs Ubuntu 16.04, and I confirmed that it supports OpenGL 3.0 through the command `glxinfo | grep 'OpenGL version'`, which output the string 'OpenGL version string: 3.0 Mesa 12.0.6'.

I discovered that VirtualBox has a long history of supporting various graphics APIs for its guests. For example, with VirtualBox 4.1, Windows Aero theme support was added for Windows Vista and Windows 7 guests (experimental). Meanwhile, Direct3D 8/9 support was introduced in VirtualBox 3.0 for Windows guests.

The earliest version to support OpenGL for Windows guests was VirtualBox 2.1, which also brought support for Linux and Solaris. However, despite these advancements, my Windows 10 guest still only supported up to OpenGL 1.1.

If you're facing a similar issue with your Windows 10 guest, there may be other solutions available depending on your specific setup. I hope this information helps in resolving the problem, but please feel free to share any additional insights or workarounds you've discovered.

Directx opengl in windows 10