After a while running Mac OS X and Windows XP in separate machines, I decided to get rid of the huge PC case under my desk and install Windows in a virtual machine within Mac OS X. VirtualBox was my choice, since it’s free and works awesomely.

One problem I was having, though, is that the current version of VirtualBox (in this exact moment I’m using 4.1.10) uses Command + R as a keyboard shortcut to reset the guest operating system. As you may know if you too use a Mac, this is also the combination of keys used to refresh a page in most browsers in Mac OS X. Since I keep switching between Windows and Mac throughout the day, my brain was having a difficult time remembering this difference, and I kept rebooting Windows by mistake.

Since I couldn’t find a solution, I decided to post a feature request in the VirtualBox Community website, asking for a feature that allows the users to change keyboard shortcuts. Before posting, though, I decided to investigate a little more, and ended up find a fix! Turns out it’s quite easy.

So, here it is what you have to do to stop this annoyance:

1) Under VirtualBox / Preferences, change the Host Key to something other than the left Cmd key (I used the right Option key);

2) In Windows, install SharpKeys and use it to map the Cmd key to the Ctrl key (or whatever other key you want);

3) ???

4) Profit!