Installation on a computer software, especially the little known, is always associated with a certain risk. The program may contain bugs that affect the stability of the system, built-in adware or tracking modules, and other unwanted elements. In addition, any software leaves traces in the system that may not have the best effect on its operation. As for experiments with Windows, it is still more risky, because sometimes even a seemingly insignificant change in registry data or modification system files can lead to the most unpleasant consequences.

Ask how to avoid them? Very simple, use virtualization systems like VirtualBox virtual machine - special program, which allows you to install, run and test different operating systems in an isolated environment. You can do anything with such virtual computers - install programs on them, configure, modify system files, work with disks and partitions, in a word, perform any experiments. If the virtual OS is damaged, you can restore it from a snapshot or delete it altogether - to the host, that is, the main working system, it won't have any effect.

Installing VirtualBox for Windows

Perhaps all this may seem complicated to someone, but in fact, there is nothing in working with Virtualbox that a novice user can handle. So how do you use VirtualBox? As usual, it all starts with installation. Go to the developer site www.oracle.com/virtualization/virtualbox/index.html and download latest version programs.

Installing VirtualBox on Windows 7/10 is almost the same as installing most other programs, you just need to follow the instructions of the wizard and do not change anything in its parameters. Upon completion of the procedure, you will receive a ready-made virtualization platform.

Creating and basic setting up a virtual machine

Like installing VirtualBox, creating and configuring a virtual machine is not particularly difficult, the program automatically selects the best configuration depending on the installation. operating system. User control, however, does not hurt.

For example, let's create a virtual machine for Windows 10 32-bit. Launch VirtualBox and click the Create button on the toolbar. In the window that opens, give the machine a name (it can be arbitrary), select the operating system and its version from the drop-down lists.

At the next stage, you will be prompted to specify the volume of the allocated virtual machine random access memory. There are no strict rules regarding allocated RAM, for 32-bit Windows it is desirable to reserve at least 1 GB of memory, for 64-bit Windows - at least 1.8-2 GB.

At the third stage, a virtual hard disk is created, here we leave everything by default. Click "Create", select the disk type VDI or VHD.

As for the storage format, it is better to choose "Dynamic", so you will save time and space on physical disk, losing, however, a little in performance.

The size of the virtual disk is set as desired, but not less than specified in the requirements of the operating system. Click "Create".

The virtual machine has been created and now you can quickly go over its settings. First of all, however, go to the settings of the VirtualBox program itself and on the General tab, change the path to the virtual machine storage directory. It is best to allocate a folder for them on the D drive, where there is the most space.

Now go to the settings of the created VM and check the following parameters:

  • In the "General" section on the "Advanced" tab, if necessary, change the path to the VM snapshot files (preferably placed in the folder with the main VM container file). Here you can also enable the shared clipboard for the host and virtual machines.
  • If you want to install the system in EFI / GPT mode, in the "System" section, be sure to check the box "Enable EFI (special OS only)".
  • To be able to run 3D applications on the virtual machine, in the "Display" section, check the "Enable 3D acceleration" checkbox.

Configuring the Internet and Shared Folders

If you plan to provide access to the VM to other users of the local physical network, in the VirtualBox network settings, select the "Network bridge" connection type. To ensure interaction between different virtual machines, the " Virtual Adapter host", to connect guest OSes to a single internal network - the mode " Internal network". There is another type of connection " Universal driver', but it is used much less frequently.

Of particular interest are shared folders in VirtualBox, thanks to which the user can exchange any files between the host and virtual machines. You can connect such a directory in the section " Shared Folders". To do this, click on the plus sign opposite the “Machine folders” item, select a folder on the hard drive through the browser and hook it up, not forgetting to set the checkbox in the “Auto-connect” checkbox.

Starting the VM and installing the operating system

Now you know how to set up VirtualBox and the created VM. Next, let's see how to install an operating system on it. The procedure for installing the OS on Virtualbox is practically no different from installing it on a physical computer, except that instead of bootable flash drive or DVD is used here installation image ISO. Run the created virtual machine and specify the path to the bootable ISO image with the system in the window that opens.

Will begin standard procedure installation, during which it will be proposed to accept license agreement, partition the disk, and after copying the system files, create account user.

The guest operating system is installed, but some features, such as shared folders and the clipboard, will not work until you install a special plug-in - guest OS additions. In addition, without these add-ons, you will not be able to adjust the screen resolution, connect flash drives to the virtual machine, etc. Luckily, you don't need to download anything, the guest OS additions come with VirtualBox. All you need to do is select the option in the virtual operating system menu Devices - Mount Guest Additions Disk Image.

Go to "This PC" in the virtual OS, open the drive VirtualBox Guest Additions and, if the system does not offer to do this itself, run the executable file VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe.

Install add-ons as regular program by accepting the security agreement and reboot the virtual machine.

The guest system is ready to use, it remains only to test the network. We will not dwell on how to set up the Internet in VirtualBox. If you select NAT, the VM will connect to the internet automatically. With other types of connections, most likely, you will have to tinker a bit. Remember the main thing, if the IP address for your main computer is automatically issued by the router, the same settings must be set in the parameters network adapter virtual system. If the settings are assigned manually, then they must also be assigned manually in the network adapter settings of the guest system.

Main problems when working with VirtualBox

VirtualBox - stable and high quality software, and if users have to face problems during its operation, then the causes of the latter are most often the errors of the users themselves. So, with the error "Failed to open a session for virtual machine” (code E_FAIL 0x80004005) will have to be faced by those who try to run virtual machines on VirtualBox with Hyper-V active. The reason is the incompatibility of these virtualization platforms. If you are going to use VirtualBox, please disable Hyper-V and vice versa.

However, the disabled virtualization feature in the BIOS can lead to the same error. This will be indicated by the unavailability of hardware virtualization options in the virtual machine settings (VT-x / AMD-V and Nested Paging in the section System - Acceleration). By the way, these options must be enabled even with active virtualization in the BIOS, otherwise the VM will not start either.

A VM crashing into a BSOD at startup is a common problem caused by a lack of physical computer resources allocated to the guest operating system. When creating a virtual machine in VirtualBox, you need to make sure that the allocated resources meet the requirements of the operating system.

The blue screen of death can also be caused by Hyper-V enabled on the host system and a controller type mismatch. If the virtual disk was previously connected to SATA, and then you connected it to the IDE, the guest OS will crash with a BSOD. The issue is resolved by creating a new compatible controller and connecting the container file with the guest system to it.

The inability to start the VM can be caused by accidental deletion of snapshot files by the user. You need to delete snapshots correctly - through the "Snapshots" section, otherwise you will have to completely reinstall the guest system. If you do not start VirtualBox itself or when you start it, you get the error “Cannot access the kernel driver!”, Most likely, the program will have to be uninstalled and then reinstalled.

VirtualBox is a virtualization software product for Microsoft Windows, DOS, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and SUN Solaris/OpenSolaris operating systems. The program was created by Innotek using the Qemu source code. The first publicly available version of VirtualBox appeared on January 15, 2007. There are two versions - free (OSE, English OpenSourceEdition), released under the GNU GPL, and proprietary (PUEL), differing in functionality; fully functional proprietary version for personal use distributed free of charge. If the product is to be used in a production environment, the purchase of licenses is required, the terms of which can be obtained from InnoTek.

VirtualBox has the ability to select the interface language (the Russian-language interface is also supported).

In February 2008, Innotek was acquired by SunMicrosystems, with the VirtualBox distribution model unchanged.

In the following story, the VirtualBox virtual machine will be discussed in more detail.

general characteristics

Each virtual machine created with VirtualBox is a standalone computer with its own hardware resources, some of which is emulated in software and some of which is borrowed from the host machine, as is the case with the VMwareServer and MicrosoftVirtualPC virtual machine.

VirtualBox has a large list of supported operating systems, comparable in variety to VMware.

This list includes operating systems Windows families, Linux, Unix, NovellNetWare and others.

VirtualBox features for working with virtual hard drives include:

Connecting multiple hard drives to each VM.

Support for fixed and dynamic disk size.

The VirtualBox platform executes guest system code natively (by passing instructions directly to the host processor). This approach works well for code running in the third guest ring, for guest code running in ring zero that requires privileged instructions, it needs to be intercepted by the virtualization platform. For this purpose, VirtualBox uses an original approach: the code that runs in the zero ring of the guest system is executed in the first ring of the host system, which is not used in the Intel architecture.

The capabilities of VirtualBOX in terms of peripheral support include:

Emulation of the video adapter as a standard VESA with 8 MB of video memory, while installing Guest VM Additions (only for Windows and Linux hosts) allows you to increase the performance of the virtual video adapter and dynamically resize the virtual machine window

Audio controller on Intel-based ICH AC"97

The closed source edition also emulates USB controllers, with USB devices plugged into the host ports automatically picked up by the guest. Also, if the virtual machine acts as an RDP (RemoteDesktopProtocol) server, then USB devices will also be visible in the client.

NIC emulated as AMD PCNet interface

Network communication between virtual machines in VirtualBox can be of three types:

NAT - The virtual machine "hides" behind the host's NAT server and can initiate connections to a network external to it, but it is impossible to initiate a connection with such a virtual machine from an external network.

HostInterfaceNetworking - in this case, the virtual machine shares the resources of the physical adapter with the host operating system and is accessible from the external network as an independent computer.

InternalNetworking - type of networking to build virtual network within the host, when you do not need to exit the virtual machine to the external network and access it from the outside.

In addition to the standard features found in most desktop virtualization systems, the VirtualBox platform also has a set of unique features that are unique to it:

Pronounced modularity of the system.

The VirtualBox platform has a modular architecture with well-described components and provides convenient interfaces access to virtual machines, which allow you to control guest systems both through the GUI and through command line and remotely. In addition, InnoTek provides an excellent SoftwareDevelopmentKit, and since the platform code is open, no additional effort is required to write an extension to the system.

The virtual machine can act as an RDP server.

Unlike other virtualization platforms, VirtualBox can act as an RDP server and be controlled by any client that supports the RDP protocol. USB over RDP is also supported.

The iSCSIinitiator component is one of the closed parts of the VirtualBox platform. It allows you to use external devices via the iSCSI protocol as virtual disks in the guest system without additional support from the guest OS.

System requirements

Processor with a clock speed of 3000 MHz or higher.

RAM 1024 MB or more.

Video card with at least 64 MB of video memory or more powerful.

Free hard disk space from 140 MB.

Optical drive for burning DVD/CD discs.

32-bit or 64-bit architecture (x86 or x64).

Operating system Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.

virtual box- very useful program to create virtual machines. With such a machine, you can easily perform a wide range of tasks. For example, when you need to test some program, and you don't want to have to completely reinstall your operating system after a failed test. Or the second option. Do you teach PC courses? And so that no one breaks your operating system, you can use a virtual machine. When creating such a computer, you will need to specify how much memory, processor cores and how much hard disk space your virtual computer will use. Program virtual box allows you to create an unlimited number of computers, unless, of course, your system resources allow you to simultaneously work with a large number of machines. In addition, virtual machines can be easily transferred to another computer, since they are designed as individual modules. Another feature of the VirtualBox program is that it has an open source. This means that it can be easily modified and customized according to your wishes and needs.



- It is possible to choose the installation or portable version.
- Ability to install almost any operating system on a virtual computer.
- Support for an unlimited number of virtual machines.
- Easy transfer of a virtual computer from one machine to another.
- The program can be installed on almost any operating system.
- A very wide range of work with virtual computers.
- Virtual computers support USB.
- The virtual and physical machines are not connected in any way.
- Ability to connect virtual machines with physical common network and exchange data, files, etc. between them.
- If you do not link the physical and virtual machine, then the ingress of viruses from one computer to another is completely excluded.
- There is support for the Russian language.

Program disadvantages

- There is no portable (portable) version.

- Processor with a clock speed of 3000 MHz or higher.
- RAM 1024 MB or more.
- Video card with at least 64 MB of video memory or more powerful.
- Free hard disk space from 164 MB.
- Optical drive for reading/writing discs.
- 32-bit or 64-bit architecture (x86 or x64).
- Operating system Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10

We discussed how to install a VirtualBox virtual machine on your computer. You can read about why a virtual machine is needed and what they are. In this article, we will learn how to create and configure our first virtual machine.

So, we launch VirtualBox using the shortcut on the desktop, and we see the welcome window of the program:

To create a new virtual machine, press the button on the top left "Create" (or the key combination "Ctrl" + "N").

You can specify any name for the virtual machine, in the "type" field, select the type of operating system that you plan to install on the virtual machine (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.), and in the field below, select the version of the operating system, depending on selected type. Since I already have Windows 7 installed on my computer, let's say I want to see and test Windows 8.1. In this case, I'll give the name "Win8.1", choose the type "Microsoft Windows", and the version "Windows 8.1 (32 bit)".

The screenshot below shows that my computer has 16 GB (16384 MB) of random access memory (RAM) in total. In order to correctly choose the parameters we need, just look at the official Microsoft website for the minimum system requirements for this operating system:

This shows that the Windows 8.1 (32 bit) operating system we are installing requires at least 1 GB of RAM. I usually over-install, so I'll install 3 GB (3072 MB) of RAM:

You can set the amount of RAM that is convenient for you (but preferably not the entire resource of your computer), and click "Forward".

Next, we are invited to create a virtual hard disk for our virtual machine, or select an existing one. Since we didn’t create such disks before, we leave the middle menu item “Create a new virtual hard disk” and click “Create”:

We leave the disk type as the default (VDI).

Then we select the file name under which we will store the virtual hard disk, its location and size. I will leave the name "Win8.1", and set the size to 40 GB, as shown in the image below:

You can set your own options (just make sure the location where you create your virtual hard disk file has enough free space) and click the Create button. A window for creating a virtual hard disk appears, you must wait for it to complete:

As a result, if everything is done correctly, you get a virtual machine ready to work. For me it looks like this:

Please note that at the top left, next to the "Create" button, two more buttons "Configure" and "Run" have become active. Click the "Configure" button to additional settings newly created virtual machine.

We will also need to configure the lowest menu item "Shared Folders" so that we can alternative way share files between your main computer and the virtual machine.

Click on the top right folder icon with a plus sign and select the folder that will be shared on your computer and virtual machine. I will create a Shared folder on drive K and check the box so that it is automatically loaded when the virtual machine starts.

On the this moment our virtual machine is a blank computer with no operating system installed. It can be installed on a virtual machine in several ways, the easiest of them is if you have a disk with a virtual system image, or a regular CD with an operating system, then just go to the "Configure" menu item in the main window of the virtual machine, then go in the "Media" tab, select an empty virtual drive CDs and point it to the disk image of the operating system you plan to install, or simply point to any CD/DVD drive on your computer into which you have inserted your operating system CD.

After that, we press the button in the form of a green arrow “Run”, and if everything is done correctly, the installation of the operating system that is on your CD or image will begin.

Sometimes when starting a virtual machine, an E_FAIL (0x80004005) error may appear. How to solve the problem with this error when starting VirtualBox, you can read in.

Post navigation

VirtualBox 5.1.6

On September 13, 2016 the Oracle company announced release of the adjusting release of the VirtualBox 5.1.6 virtualization system.

The release includes 28 fixes to improve stability and eliminate regressive changes.

Among the changes:

VirtualBox 5.1.4

Correction:

  • Several bugs have been fixed in the installer for the Linux platform, leading to failures during the installation process on some distributions of this OS;
  • Fixed an issue where the mouse pointer did not display normally when running Linux and Solaris guests in a Windows host environment ;
  • The Linux Guest Additions make the video driver work in 32-bit guests with large video memory;
  • Added support for the Linux 4.7 kernel in the Linux Guest Additions video driver, and provided a workaround for a bug in the X server that caused the screen to stop updating;
  • Fixed crashes and freezes that occur during the operation of the sound subsystem and USB;
  • Improved stability on NVMe drives;
  • Fixed issues with incorrect constraint bandwidth access to the storage when the limits are set too low.

VirtualBox 5.1.2

Major changes

  • Implementation of APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller) and I / O APIC, notable for a significant increase in performance under some types of load (when using network functions);
  • Interface migration to Qt5;
  • The use of passive processing of requests to the API, which made it possible to increase the performance and responsiveness of the VM GUI;
  • The detach GUI (Detach UI) function has been moved to the virtual machine management menu;
  • Support for paravirtualized Hyper-V debugging for Windows guest environments;
  • Advanced MMIO (Memory-mapped I/O) emulation;
  • Audio output improvements: Added HDA (High Definition Audio) support for modern Linux guest systems. Improved performance when performing operations with sound and reduced CPU load. The AC"97 emulator provides more precise volume control;
  • Improved support for Python 3;
  • The session information window has been redesigned;
  • The new virtual machine setup wizard now allows you to select the location of the created VM;
  • When working with drives, the fallocate call is used to proactively reserve blocks, which made it possible to increase the speed of creating fixed-size disk images;
  • Implemented NVMHCI-compliant SSD controller (NVM Express, Non-Volatile Memory Host Controller Interface);
  • Increased performance network driver E1000;
  • Numerous improvements to EFI support, including the ability to boot from USB;
  • Improving the processing of images in the OVF (Open Virtualization Format) format, certified by a digital signature;
  • DKMS is no longer used to build the Linux kernel module.

VirtualBox 5.0.16

Among the most notable fixes:

  • We fixed an issue resulting in incorrect behavior of guest systems on computers with AMD CPUs.
  • Fixed an issue with a GUI crash occurring in a fairly rare set of circumstances;
  • For Linux, an experimental PC speaker forwarding feature has been introduced;
  • Fixed several issues with xHCI USB controllers (for example, webcam forwarding did not work);
  • Added support for cached authentication in Active Directory in the guest system management tools in a situation where the domain controller is unavailable;
  • Fixed problems with /sbin/rcvboxdrv script on Linux hosts;
  • For Linux hosts, Python scripts are correctly uninstalled when performing the uninstall operation via the .run installer.

VirtualBox 5.1 Beta 1

Main upgraded features of Oracle VirtualBox 5.1 (the final version is expected no earlier than mid-August 2016):

  • The hypervisor will implement APIC (Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller - improved programmable interrupt controller) and I / O APIC, they will give a performance boost under certain network conditions.
  • The hypervisor will support paravirtualized guest OS with the Hyper-V role for debugging.
  • MMIO improvements that have a positive effect on performance and reduce the overhead of virtualization.
  • GUI moved to Qt5.
  • The passive API event listener improves the performance of the front-end and reduces the response time for operations in the VirtualBox console.
  • Improved support for Python 3.
  • Many improvements in the GUI - for example, the session information window has been redesigned, new master creating a virtual machine and much more.
  • For quick creation preallocated virtual disks, the fallocate function is used (if supported).
  • Improved EFI support (can boot from a USB drive).
  • Improved processing of digitally signed OVF packets of virtual modules.
  • The Linux installer no longer uses DKMS to build modules.

VirtualBox 5.0.24

The product has eight fixes aimed at improving stability and eliminating regressive changes. The most noticeable change is the rollback of the code to the old implementation of I/O-APIC due to the discovery of a series of regressive changes in the new code. As a result, some guest systems may experience a drop in I/O performance to the 5.0.20 release level. As a workaround, it is recommended to disable GRO support for Linux guests.

Other changes:

  • Eliminate potential corruption of optimized VMDK images created in VMware products;
  • Implementation of support for dynamic reconnection of input devices on OS X hosts;
  • Informing guest systems of changing battery state of charge via ACPI notifications;
  • Troubleshooting when using host systems with Linux 4.6 kernel;
  • Resuming the GUI on Solaris 10 Hosts .

2015

VirtualBox 5.0 Beta Started

The main change in it is the implementation of work in the paravirtualization mode, which implies the use of a guest system modified for closer interaction with the hypervisor and using special drivers instead of hardware emulation. Working in paravirtualization mode makes it possible to significantly increase the performance of the guest system.

Screenshot of the paravirtualization manager window, 2015

Including changes:

  • A new modular audio subsystem architecture that provides a higher level of abstraction from the audio backends of the host system;
  • Providing guests running with hardware virtualization engines with the ability to use extended instruction sets such as SSE 4.1, SSE4.2, AES-NI, POPCNT, RDRAND, and RDSEED;
  • Added support for devices with xHCI virtual controller USB interface 3;
  • Drag "n" drop support for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests;
  • Ability to encrypt disk images;
  • Added support for scaling guest screen output to the GUI, including when using 3D acceleration;
  • New configurator section for menu and status bar customization;
  • New tab for configuring disk image encryption options;
  • Support for ultra-high resolution (HiDPI) screens
  • Hot-pluggable SATA drives.

Oracle releases VirtualBox 4.3.28 patch

Notable Fixes

  • Improved tools for forwarding webcams from Linux hosts (V4L2). Added support for new models of webcams;
  • Support for the upcoming Linux 4.1 kernel;
  • Solving problems when working on systems with the Linux 3.19 kernel activated mode SMAP protection;
  • Elimination of flickering at the time of updating the mouse cursor when using add-ons for X11;
  • Improved use of VNIC templates with network configurations on the Crossbow platform on Solaris ;
  • Fixed crashes when shutting down Linux and restoring the X11 environment after hibernation in case of using 3D acceleration tools;
  • VRDP provides compatibility with rdesktop 1.8.3, rdesktop-vrdp has been moved to version 1.8.3;
  • Improved volume controls for emulating HD audio devices;
  • Ensured correct application of bandwidth limit when using NAT.

Oracle Announces VirtualBox 5.0 Release Candidate 1

Application window screenshot, 2015

Among the most significant changes:

  • improved support for monitors with high resolution(HiDPI)
  • more effective use video memory, this expands the range of device support and optimizes performance
  • improved console interface, added smooth switching of elements
  • support for localization interface languages ​​(NLS)
  • correctly displays the encryption process
  • support for "hot" adding USB controllers, now the controller type is visible in the VM settings
  • hot-plugging SATA optical drives
  • many bug fixes Guest Additions
  • improved Drag&Drop mechanism
  • rdesktop-vrdp version 1.8.3
  • fixed AHCI processing errors
  • documented Guest Additions heartbeat service
  • improved overall system stability

Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 Released

On August 4, 2015 the Oracle corporation announced availability to loading of Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 - the open (Open Source) cross-platform software for virtualization.

Oracle VM VirtualBox runs on x86 desktop and mobile PCs. Oracle VM VirtualBox enables the creation of multi-platform virtual machine environments for developing and testing applications, for general-purpose operating system virtualization, with the added capability of dynamic encryption. Developers can create applications for cloud platforms such as Docker and OpenStack directly in the Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machine environment on their Windows, Mac OS, Linux or Oracle Solaris computers, which makes it easy to develop multi-layer applications on a regular laptop.

Application window screenshot, 2014

Oracle VM VirtualBox helps you create and update virtual machines locally on your computers, including the operating system and applications, and then package them into a standard file format for distribution and deployment in the cloud with Oracle VM Server or other server virtualization solutions. In addition, Oracle VM VirtualBox helps run nearly any x86 platform operating system to run applications not natively available to run on mainstream systems.

The Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 version supports the latest guest or host operating systems, including Mac OS X Yosemite, Windows 10, Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, and other Linux distributions, as well as legacy operating systems.

Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 additions:

  • Paravirtualization Support for Windows and Linux Guest OSes - Paravirtualization (the ability to run a modified guest OS without hardware virtualization) improves guest operating system performance by leveraging built-in virtualization support in operating systems such as Oracle Linux 7 and Microsoft Windows 7 (and later).
  • Optimizing CPU usage - The guest operating system is provided with an extended processor instruction set, allowing applications to use the latest hardware instruction sets for maximum performance.
  • Support for USB 3.0 devices - Guest operating systems can directly recognize and work with USB 3.0 devices on their respective maximum speeds. The guest OS can be configured to support USB 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0.
  • Bidirectional Drag support and Drop for Windows - On all host platforms, Windows, Linux, and Oracle Solaris guest operating systems now support Drag and Drop content between host and guest OS. The "drag and drop" function allows you to transparently copy, open files, directories, etc.
  • Disk Image Encryption - Data can be encrypted on virtual disk images. hard drive in the background while programs are running; it uses the AES algorithm with 256-bit encryption keys (DEK). This helps ensure that data is secure and allows encryption to be performed at any time, regardless of whether the virtual machine is idle or active on the developer's machine or on the server.

VirtualBox 5.0.2 released

Among the most notable:

  • built-in support for systemd has been added to the installation scripts for host environments and guests. Scripts for building kernel modules are now located in /sbin/rcvboxdrv (host) and /sbin/rcvboxadd (guest addons);
  • added support for OS X 10.11 "El Capitan" ;
  • Compilation issues when using pre-releases of the Linux 4.3 kernel have been resolved;
  • fixed problems in the installer, manifested in Linux From Scratch and systems with a "vanilla" Linux kernel;
  • in additions for Linux guest systems, the correct saving of the VBoxService process ID in the PID file has been established;
  • Fixed issues with Guest Control when using Linux Guest Additions ;
  • a large batch of fixes specific to Windows and OS X guests, as well as when running VirtualBox in host mode on a Windows platform.

VirtualBox 5.0.10

The release includes 32 fixes focused on improving stability and eliminating regressive changes. Among them:

  • provided compatibility with RHEL 7.2;
  • Resolved a compatibility issue with .desktop files on Linux host systems (incorrect /usr/share/applications/virtualbox.desktop file was shipped).
  • the organization of recompilation of the kernel module has been changed (the launch of "/sbin/rcvboxdrv setup" instead of /sbin/vboxconfig is provided, which led to problems with module activation on some systems);
  • on hosts with Linux, the process of forwarding PCI devices has been improved;
  • fixed a rare issue that, under certain circumstances, leads to the freezing of a virtual machine on Linux and OS X platforms;
  • for hosts on the Solaris platform added bindings for Python 2.7;
  • Linux fixed an issue with connecting a second monitor caused by the compiler deleting code it thought was unused, which was not true.
  • Additions for Linux guests ensure that /proc/mounts is passed the names of directories mounted for sharing(previously displayed "none");
  • Additions for Linux guests provide a workaround for enabling the "vboxadd" systemd service that occurs when using SELinux.
  • Fixed issues with scrolling in the GUI when dragging items outside the selection area and improved cursor handling when selecting text with the mouse.
  • Fixed issues with XHCI controller emulation in software virtualization mode;
  • LBA64 support has been added to the BIOS implementation to enable booting from very large hard drives.

2013

Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.3

Among the significant features new version– support for the `scale` mode, which allows proportionally reducing the size of the guest operating system window. The VirtualBox management interface has also been redesigned, which in the new version is called VirtualBox Manager. New interface, in addition to service information, now contains screenshots reflecting the recent state of the guest operating system. The program file storage locations have been changed, the amount of memory supported on 32-bit guest systems has been increased, new virtual components have been added: the Intel ICH9 chipset and Intel HD Audio. Also improved support for OVF, improved work with VDI and VHD images, added support for multiple virtual screens on Linux and Solaris guests, bug fixes.

In the fourth version, the program architecture was redesigned: now it consists of a base package and extension sets. The main package is distributed under the GPLv2 license.

The new version of VirtualBox adds the ability to connect additional functional modules, including those distributed under proprietary licenses. So far, the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack plug-in has been announced, which will provide high speed when working with USB 2.0, services remote access to desktops and network boot. It is likely that in the future Oracle will develop other plug-ins distributed for money.