Office 365 problem on Win 10 Pro in Virtualbox under Linux Mint

Hello everyone.

I'm running Linux Mint 19.3, Cinnamon edition, and it's up-to-date.

I'm also running Windows 10 Pro as a guest in VirtualBox under LM. The Win 10 installation is up-to-date - Version 1909, OS build 18363.720. I subscribe to Office 365 Home.

My problem arises when I install Office 365 - either from Microsoft Store or direct from the Office web site. It appears to install correctly but when I run Excel, Word, etc they start correctly but the display in the app has a white background with the occasional black box within it, which is unusable.

However when I attempt to run the virtual machine (in VBox) on a native Windows 10 Home system the apps start and display correctly.

This isn't a deal-breaker because I can use the online apps, or the mobile apps which I install on the Win 10 Pro guest running on LM. (Strangely, I can't find Excel Mobile, for example, in the Microsoft Store. I have to search for it online - which, I guess, is because it's intended for mobile devices not a Win 10 system on a PC.)

Any help/guidance most gratefully received,

Steve

Not long ago I tried Office 2016 on a Window 10 Virtualbox virtual machine using Linux mint 19.2 Host and it was working fine. But my revision of Windows 10 was much bellow 1909. (I think in the 16xx or something like that.

I was even able to activate the Office licence from within the virtual machine with an unactivated windows 10 licence.

... it's not the same thing as you with Office 365.

I am interested to know about your end result Finnfire. If you found a solution to make your Office 365 work within the virtual machine in LNM 19.3.

Hi windowz123,

Basically I've given up... Not on running Windows 10/Office 365 under LM19.3, but trying to load the Office 365 software on to the virtual machine. I've accepted the compromise of either running Excel Mobile (which is what I use most of the time) or the online version of Excel. Crucially OneDrive stills syncs to the virtual machine which, security-wise, is a must for me.

Cheers,

Finnfire

windowz123 said:

Not long ago I tried Office 2016 on a Window 10 Virtualbox virtual machine using Linux mint 19.2 Host and it was working fine. But my revision of Windows 10 was much bellow 1909. (I think in the 16xx or something like that.

I was even able to activate the Office licence from within the virtual machine with an unactivated windows 10 licence.

... it's not the same thing as you with Office 365.

I am interested to know about your end result Finnfire. If you found a solution to make your Office 365 work within the virtual machine in LNM 19.3.

finnfire said:

Hi windowz123,

Basically I've given up... Not on running Windows 10/Office 365 under LM19.3, but trying to load the Office 365 software on to the virtual machine. I've accepted the compromise of either running Excel Mobile (which is what I use most of the time) or the online version of Excel. Crucially OneDrive stills syncs to the virtual machine which, security-wise, is a must for me.

Cheers,

Finnfire

Oh oki you gave up, it's ok.

It would have been interesting to understand what caused the 365 not to work in a Linux virtual machine exactly. The whole process, if the result was an accident or made on purpose.

I confirm the problem mentioned above:

- Host OS is Ubuntu 19.04 (including latest updates)
- Running Windows 10 (1909) inside Virtualbox VM 6.0.14
- Installed Office 365

Office 365 works and is display correctly without Virtualbox Guest Additions installed.

But as soon as I install Guest Additions (including the Virtualbox guest graphics driver), the problem appears: Word, Excel and the Office installer come up as white screens.

It seems to be purely a display problem. When my mouse overs over the Word window, I see the buttons tooltips.

Now that's interesting...

If I feel brave enough, I'll uninstall VirtualBox Guest Additions & install Office 365 (or as it will be called in future Microsoft 365). But I'll backup the Win 10 VM first...

bratzenfisch said:

I confirm the problem mentioned above:

- Host OS is Ubuntu 19.04 (including latest updates)
- Running Windows 10 (1909) inside Virtualbox VM 6.0.14
- Installed Office 365

Office 365 works and is display correctly without Virtualbox Guest Additions installed.

But as soon as I install Guest Additions (including the Virtualbox guest graphics driver), the problem appears: Word, Excel and the Office installer come up as white screens.

It seems to be purely a display problem. When my mouse overs over the Word window, I see the buttons tooltips.

- - - Updated - - -

It worked! Many thanks to bratzenfisch for his input.

I uninstalled VirtualBox Guest Additions, installed Office 365, and Excel, etc now display as they should.

Oracle/VirtualBox should investigate the issue.

finnfire said:

Now that's interesting...

If I feel brave enough, I'll uninstall VirtualBox Guest Additions & install Office 365 (or as it will be called in future Microsoft 365). But I'll backup the Win 10 VM first...

- - - Updated - - -

The problem has been solved - sort of. You can load VirtualBox Guest Additions as normal but the answer is to disable 3D acceleration in the VM's settings. Once that is done all Office 365 apps work as they should.
The answer was finally provided by this bugticket - #18914 (VBoxSVGA 3D rendering problems)
– Oracle VM VirtualBox
I will mark the issue as solved. But it isn't really as you can't get Office 365 to run *and* have 3D acceleration on, so this is a work-around.
Thanks to everyone who pointed me in the right direction :)

Ahh it was only a minor thing after all. Minor but not minor at the same time.

Absolutely! That's nicely phrased :)

windowz123 said:

Ahh it was only a minor thing after all. Minor but not minor at the same time.

finnfire: Thanks for the link to Virtualbox issue. That helps me following it. Also great to know that there's a workaround: I probably can live without hardware 3D in a VM