How can I stop Unity 2d intercepting meta key when I'm in VirtualBox?

Whenever I'm working in virtualbox guest system and pressing meta key (aka winkey, or Mod4) a huge unity menu pop ups.

Is there any way to fix this behavior?

Still doesn't work, even on new profile :/. I created simple patch, to disable unity launcher and turn off highlighting menu on panel when Alt pressed.

annoying_keys_unity_2d.diff

Steps to apply it:

• cd $build_dir (any empty dir)
• apt-get source unity-2d
• sudo apt-get build-dep unity-2d
• wget https://raw.github.com/gist/1352470/eb9c736bd1041af4be04f0bafdd8e437c222ea15/annoying_keys_unity_2d.diff
• patch -Np1 < annoying_keys_unity_2d.diff
• cd unity-2d-4.12.0
• dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b
• cd ..
• sudo dpkg -i ./*.deb

Unfortunately there is no way to grab the Super key when working in Virtual Box in non-fullscreen mode as this key is not released by by Unity.

By installation of compizconfig-settings-manager and running ccsm we may define keyboard shortcuts to show unity desktop elements even when Unity2D is running.

Warning: ccsm can lead to unwanted effects that may be hard to overcome and may leave you without a desktop (see also this question for more background information).

Browse to the Desktop -> Unity settings and choose the key shortcut you want to change from the Behaviour tab.

Note: The Unity plugin does not need to be enabled to change keybindings:

The key that controls the "huge black" dash is the Key to show the launcher. By doing so you can assign a different key combination on the host and on the guest to avoid that both open. Note however that still Super will open the Dash on the host when choosing any combination with the Super-key (e.g. Ctrl + Super) in the guest.

You can also disable the keyboard shortcut from here.

This procedure was tested on a virtual machine running 11.10. where we disabled the 3D graphic acceleration in the machine. It may not work the same on real hardware.