As of version 4.0, VM VirtualBox introduces the Extension Pack mechanism which allows Oracle and 3rd parties to deliver additional functionality on top of the standard Open Source product.
Presently, VM 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.
• VM VirtualBox features
Some of the features of VM VirtualBox are:
Modularity.
VM 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. VM 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 VM 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, Linux and Solaris.
VM VirtualBox has special software that can be installed inside Windows, Linux and Solaris 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). There are also guest additions for OS/2 with somewhat reduced functionality.
Shared folders.
Like many other virtualization solutions, for easy data exchange between hosts and guests, VM VirtualBox allows for declaring certain host directories as "shared folders", which can then be accessed from within virtual machines.
• Extra features
Extra features of VM VirtualBox are:
Virtual USB Controllers.
VM 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, VM 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.
Note: Extra features are available with the full VM VirtualBox release only
• Download VM VirtualBox 4.0.2 Build 69518
You can download VM VirtualBox 4.0.2 Build 69518 from website Download Oracle VM VirtualBox or click here to download Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.2 Build 69518 for Windows
What's new in Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0
Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0 is a major update. The following major new features were added:
• Reorganization of VM VirtualBox into a base package and Extension Packs; see chapter 1.5, Installing VM VirtualBox and extension packs, see the manual for more information
• New settings/disk file layout for VM portability; see chapter 10.1, Where VM VirtualBox stores its files, see the manual for more information
• Major rework of the GUI (now called “VM VirtualBox Manager”):
- Redesigned user interface with guest window preview (also for screenshots)
- New “scale” display mode with scaled guest display; see chapter 1.8.5, Resizing the machine’s window, see the manual for more information
- Support for creating and starting .vbox desktop shortcuts (bug #1889)
- The VM list is now sortable
- Machines can now be deleted easily without a trace including snapshots and saved states, and optionally including attached disk images (bug #5511; also, VBoxManage unregistervm --delete can do the same now)
- Built-in creation of desktop file shortcuts to start VMs on double click (bug #2322)
• VMM: support more than 1.5/2 GB guest RAM on 32-bit hosts
• New virtual hardware:
- Intel ICH9 chipset with three PCI buses, PCI Express and Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI); see chapter 3.4.1, “Motherboard” tab, see the manual for more information
- Intel HD Audio, for better support of modern guest operating systems (e.g. 64-bit Windows; bug #2785)
• Improvements to OVF support (see chapter 1.12, Importing and exporting virtual machines, see the manual for more information):
- Open Virtualization Format Archive (OVA) support
- Significant performance improvements during export and import
- Creation of the manifest file on export is optional now
- Imported disks can have formats other than VMDK
• Resource control: added support for limiting a VM’s CPU time and IO bandwidth; see chapter 5.8, Limiting bandwidth for disk images, see the manual for more information
• Storage: support asynchronous I/O for iSCSI, VMDK, VHD and Parallels images
• Storage: support for resizing VDI and VHD images; see chapter 8.21, VBoxManage modifyhd, see the manual for more information.
• Guest Additions: support for multiple virtual screens in Linux and Solaris guests using X.Org server 1.3 and later
• Language bindings: uniform Java bindings for both local (COM/XPCOM) and remote (SOAP) invocation APIs
What's new in Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.2 Build 69518
The following items were added/fixed since VM VirtualBox 4.0.2 Build 69518
- GUI: don't crash if a removable host drive referenced from the VM settings vanished
- GUI: fixed a crash when using the KDE4 Oxygen theme and clicked on the settings button (4.0 regression; bug #7875)
- GUI: properly warn if the machine folder cannot be created (bug #8031)
- GUI: several fixes for multimonitor X11 guests
- ExtPack: don’t make the installer helper application suid root (Linux .deb/.rpm packages only)
- ExtPack: improved user experience on Vista / Windows 7 when installing an extension pack
- ExtPack: fixed issue with non-ascii characters in the path name during installing an extension pack (bug #7917)
- ExtPack: fixed SELinux issues on 32-bit Linux hosts
- VBoxManage: Host-only interface creation and removal is now supported for all platforms except Solaris (bug #7741)
- VBoxManage: fixed segmentation fault when removing non-existent host-only interface
- Storage: fixed possible crashes with VMDK/VHD images with snapshots and async I/O (4.0 regression)
- Storage: don’t eject the physical medium if a DVD/CDROM/floppy drive is detached from a VM (bug #5825)
- Storage: be more robust when a faulty guest sends ATA commands to an ATAPI device (bug #6597)
- Parallels: fixed deletion of the image during suspend, pause or power off (4.0 regression)
- Bridged networking: fixed host kernel panic when bridging to devices with no TX queue (4.0 regression; Linux hosts only; bug #7908)
- NAT: port-forwarding rule registration respects protocol parameter (bug #8094)
- E1000: fixed PXE boot issues with WDS (bug #6330)
- Virtio-net: fixed the issue with TX performance in some Linux guests
- ICH9: fixed VM crash (software virtualization only; bug #7885)
- VGA: fixed VESA screen issue (4.0 regression; bug #7986)
- Shared Folders: fixed parameter parsing when creating symbolic links, fixes 32-bit/64-bit bitness issue (bug #818)
- Main: fixed crash under rare circumstances due to an invalid logging string (4.0 regression)
- Main: improve error information propagation for errors preventing a VM start
- Main: fixed problems with snapshots and non-ASCII characters in machine paths (bug #8024)
- Webservice: now listens to localhost by default as documented (bug #6067)
- Settings: do not fail loading machine settings if removeable drive attachment (host drive or image) cannot be found; with 4.0 this is much more likely when machines are moved from one host to another
- Settings: fixed issue that changing a snapshot name or description was not saved to machine XML
- OVF/OVA: fixed import of files created by other OVF tools (bug #7983)
- rdesktop-vrdp: fix a crash during USB device enumeration (bug #7981)
- Linux hosts: fixed a crash during USB device enumeration.
- Linux hosts: try a bit harder to allocate memory (bug #8035; 4.0 regression)
- Guest Additions: fixed parsing of parameters for guest control in VBoxService (4.0 regression; bug #8010)
- Windows Guest Additions: automatic logon on Windows Vista/Windows 7 now supports unlocking previously locked workstations
Source
• Changelog for VM VirtualBox 4.0
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