
VirtualBox is a powerful x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD. VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Sun ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria.
Some of the features of VirtualBox are:
• Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don't have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.
• Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.
• Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has special software that can be installed inside Windows and Linux virtual machines to improve performance and make integration much more seamless. Among the features provided by these Guest Additions are mouse pointer integration and arbitrary screen solutions (e.g. by resizing the guest window).
• Shared folders. Like many other virtualization solutions, for easy data exchange between hosts and guests, VirtualBox allows for declaring certain host directories as "shared folders", which can then be accessed from within virtual machines.
A number of extra features are available with the full VirtualBox release only (see the "Editions" page for details):
• Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on the host.
• Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlike any other virtualization software, VirtualBox fully supports the standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual machine can act as an RDP server, allowing you to "run" the virtual machine remotely on some thin client that merely displays the RDP data.
• USB over RDP. With this unique feature, a virtual machine that acts as an RDP server can still access arbitrary USB devices that are connected on the RDP client. This way, a powerful server machine can virtualize a lot of thin clients that merely need to display RDP data and have USB devices plugged in.
Changes in VirtualBox 3.1.4 (released 2010-02-12):
* VMM: SMP stability fixes
* VMM: fixed guru meditation in certain rare cases (bug #5968)
* VMM: activate NXE for PAE enabled guests (VT-x and AMD-V on 32 bits hosts only; bug #3578)
* VMM: added workaround for broken BIOSes that make VirtualBox think AMD-V is in use (for details see bug #5639)
* VMM: fixed rare host reboot when restoring a saved state (bug #3945)
* VMM: fixed incompatibility with 2.6.32 Linux kernels (software virtualization only; bug #6100)
* VMM: turn on nested paging by default for new VMs (if available; VT-x and AMD-V only)
* VMM: turn on VPID by default for new VMs (if available; VT-x only)
* VMM: perform strict CPUID compatibility checks when teleporting; to get the old behavior set "VBoxInternal/CPUM/StrictCpuIdChecks" to 0
* VMM: fixed VM crash with certain 16 bits Windows applications (software virtualization only; bug #5399)
* Snapshots: fixed a 3.1 regression that broke deletion of snapshots when a machine had immutable or writethrough storage attached (bug #5727)
* Saved state: fixed VERR_SSM_LOADED_TOO_MUCH error when loading DisplayScreenshot(bug #6162)
* VBoxManage: add restorecurrent operation to snapshots command
* VBoxManage: fixed broken snapshot lookup by name (bug #6070
* GUI: fixed the broken "Reload" button that reloads the machine XML when a machine is inaccessible
* GUI: fixed guest fullscreen mode after reboot (bug #5372)
* GUI: handle Ctrl+Break properly on X11 hosts (bug #6122)
* GUI: fixed status LEDs for storage devices
* GUI: workaround for disabling the seamless mode on KDE hosts (KWin bug)
* 3D support: fixed SELinux warning saying VBoxOGL.so requires text relocation (bug #5690)
* 3D support: fixed Corrupted surface rendering (bug #5695)
* 3D support: free textures on guest application termination (bug #5206)
* 3D support: fixed ubigraph_server crashes (#4674)
* 3D support: fixes for 64-bit Solaris guests
* Seamless: disable seamless mode when guest changes screen resolution (bug #5655)
* NAT: fixed high CPU load under certain circumstances (Windows hosts only; bug #5787)
* NAT: fixed handling of the broadcast flag in DHCP requests
* NAT: fixed rare crash due to an assertion in the ICMP code (bug #3217)
* Virtio-net: don't crash when ports accessed beyond the valid range (bug #5923)
* LsiLogic: fix for Windows 7 guests
* ATA: fix for guru meditation when installing Solaris 8 guests (bug #5972)
* VHD: fixed an incompatibility with Virtual PC (bug #5990)
* VHD: update the footer backup after setting a new UUID (bug #5004)
* Host DVD: really fixed loading "passthrough" setting from config file (bug #5681)
* Shared folders: fixed resolving of symlink target on Linux (3.1.2 regression)
* VRDP: fixed VERR_NET_ADDRESS_IN_USE error when restarting a VM (3.1 regression; bug #5902)
* VRDP: fixed crash on Mac OS X when 3D is enabled (3.1 regression)
* PulseAudio: fixed recording (bug #4302)
* USB: fixed a shutdown blue screen (Windows hosts only; bug #5885)
* BIOS: fixed attribute during text scroll (bug #3407)
* OVF: fix strange error messages on disk import errors
* OVF: do not require write access the the .ovf file during import (3.1 regression; bug #5762)
* iSCSI: fix taking snapshots of a running VM (#5849)
* Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPod; bug #5873)
* Solaris installer: fixed USB module removal and Solaris 10 "id" binary incompatibility
* Guest Additions: fixed wrong guest time adjustment if the guest clock is ahead (3.1 regression; non-Windows guests only)
* Linux Additions: fixed shared folders for Linux 2.6.32 guests (bug #5891)
* Linux Additions: make the mouse driver work on Debian 5.0.3 guests again (3.1.2 regression, bug #5832)
* Windows Additions: fixed malfunctioning !VBoxService that broke time-sync (bug #5872)
* Windows Additions: fixed uninstallation issues on 64-bit guests
* Windows Additions: fixed some sysprep execution issues
* X.Org Additions: never reject the saved video mode as invalid (bug #5731)
* XFree86 Additions: accept video mode hints for the initial mode again
Homepage - http://www.virtualbox.org
Size: 70.3 MB
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