Virtual Box on OSX questions

Upgraded my 27" Mid 2011 to 20GB ram.
Installed latest virtual box. Went to Oracle virtual Box forum and found info on VM recognizing my Optical drive. Loaded Win 7, MS Office 2000, WP8, Hoyle card games and Hoyle Poker DVDs. Can't ask these questions on VB forum as Oracle won't let me join unless I list a work phone and address, even tho I am retarded, er, retired.
Two questions. 1) how do I get the VM to recognize my OSX USB drive when I connect a drive with WP or Word files on them? Am I suppose to list the drive Mfr., S/N, every time I change thumb drives?
@. How do i enlarge my VM display, short of going to full screen?

I haven't used VB in a while but there should be an option in the menu somewhere to attach the USB ports to the VM. As for enlarging the screen, make sure to install the guest additions.

Virtualbox's ability to connect to the USB drives is annoying at best and does require you to go through the filters to attach specific things to the virtual machine.

Even then, its really hit or miss on how well it works. I used it for many years on Windows machines and now I only use VMWare Fusion which has this WONDERFUL little feature where anything that is plugged into the Mac with the VM running gets you a prompt asking who should get access to it.

So, if I plug in a USB flash drive and have two VMs running in addition to OS X, I get a nice pop-up and it lists the 2 VMs (Windows 8.1 and Linux) and Mac as the three options. I choose Windows and the USB drive shows up nicely within Windows just like I expect.

For that feature alone, VMware Fusion or Parallels (which also works nicely) is worth the $80..

However, both VMWare Fusion and Parallels are just better running on OS X than VirtualBox..

I just remembered that there are some special additions that can be installed for better access to USB devices. It's called the "VirtualBox extension pack" and it notes that this adds support for USB 2.0. It might be worth giving those a look as well.

Thanks all. I decided to get rid of VM. I'll stick to Word for Mac or Libre Office. My needs are minimal and Libre Office seems to meet my modest needs. While I still prefer WP, it's way past time to move on.