Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.6 Build 71344 Released

VM VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VM 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).

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
Here are some of the features of VM VirtualBox:
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
Here are some of extra features of VM VirtualBox:
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 4.0.6 Build 71344
You can download VM VirtualBox 4.0.6 Build 71344 from website Download Oracle VM VirtualBox or click here to download Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.6 Build 71344for 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 4.0.6 Build 71344
- VMM: fixed incorrect handling of ballooned pages when restoring a VMM from a saved state
- VMM: don't crash on hosts with more than 64 cores / hyperthreads; implemented support for up to 256 host cores (except Windows hosts; bug #8489)
- VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests running on hosts without PAE (bug #8006)
- VMM: fixed slow Linux guests with raw mode and recent guest kernels (bug #8726)
- GUI: support host key combinations (bug #979)
- GUI: fixed progress indicator (bug #7814)
- GUI: show the mouse pointer while the VM is paused if the USB tablet mouse emulation is used (bug #6799)
- GUI: adapt the snapshot folder as well when renaming a VM (bug #8469)
- GUI: persistently remember the last folders of the disk/DVD/floppy selectors
- GUI: never allow to start a VM with USB-2.0 activated if the proper extension pack is missing (bug #8182)
- GUI: fixed hang/crash when opening a file dialog in an non-existing folder (bug #8673)
- Snapshots: fixed a bug which could lose entries in the media registry when restoring a snapshot (bug #8363)
- Snapshots: allow snapshots to be stored in the VM directory
- 3D support: fixed a crash if a VM was forced to terminate (Windows hosts only; bug #7133)
- Storage: fixed memory leak (4.0 regression; bug #7966)
- Storage: fixed access to iSCSI targets over internal network
- Storage: fixed reading from disks with more than one snapshot for VHD and VMDK images with disabled host cache (bug #8408)
- Storage: fixed a possible hang during VM suspend after an I/O error occurred
- Storage: fixed a possible hang during VM suspend / reset (bug #8276, #8294)
- Storage: automatically create a diff image when attaching a streamOptimized VMDK image to a VM
- ATA/SATA: fixed automounting of virtual CD/DVD mediums with recent Linux distributions by correctly reporting the current profile as 'none' if no medium is present
- Buslogic: fixed emulation for certain guests (e.g. jRockit VE)
- Host-Only Networking: fixed interface creation failure on Windows hosts (4.0.4 regression; bug #8362)
- Host-Only & Bridged & Internal Networking: fix for processing promiscuous mode requests by VMs, defaulting to switch behaviour
- Host-Only Networking: fixed connectivity issue after resuming the host from sleep (bug #3625)
- Bridged Networking: support for interface bonding on Mac OS X hosts (bug #8731)
- NAT: fixed processing of ARP announcements for guests with static assigned IPs (bug #8609)
- VRDP: backward compatibility with VRDPAuth external authentication library (bug #8063)
- Shared Folders: don't fail to start a VM if a path is not absolute, for example when importing an OVF from a different host (bug #7941)
- Audio: fixed crash under certain conditions (bug #8527)
- USB: fixed a crash when plugging certain USB devices (bug #8699)
- HPET: fixed time jumps when reading the counter (bug #8707)
- OVF/OVA: automatically adjust disk paths if the VM name is changed on import
- OVF/OVA: fix export to slow medias
- OVF/OVA: automatically repair inconsistent appliances with multiple disks (bug #8253)
- rdesktop-vrdp: fixed an assertion triggered under certain conditions (bug #8593)
- Windows hosts: fixed occasional hangs during VM shutdown because sometimes COM was not properly uninitialized
- Mac OS X hosts: prevent the mouse from leaving the VM window while captured
- Mac OS X hosts: keep aspect ratio while resizing in scale mode (shift for old behaviour) (part of bug #7822)
- X11 hosts: fixed Yen key support (bug #8438)
- X11 hosts: fixed a regression which caused Host+F1 to pop up help instead of sending Ctrl+Alt+F1
- Linux hosts / Linux Additions: mangle IPRT symbols to allow installing VirtualBox inside a VM while the Guest Additions are active (bug #5686)
- Linux hosts / Linux guests: workaround for a bug in GLIBC older than version 1.11 leading to crashes under certain conditions (signed/unsigned problem with memchr on 64-bit machines)
- Solaris hosts: fixed a deadlock in event semaphores that could lead to unkillable VM processes
- Windows Additions: fixed Sysprep parameter handling
- Windows Additions: fixed spontaneous guest reboots under certain circumstances (4.0.6 regression; bugs #8406, #8429)
- Windows Additions: added auto logon support for locked workstations on legacy Windows versions
- Windows Additions: fixed driver bugcheck error when handling PnP messages (4.0 regression; bug #8367)
- Windows Additions: fixed memory leak in VBoxVideo
- X11 Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.10 final
- Linux Additions: Linux kernel 2.6.39-rc1 fixes
- Linux Additions: improved auto-run support (bug #5509)
- Linux Additions: fix mouse support on SUSE 11 SP 1 guests (bug #7946)
- Solaris Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.9
- Guest Additions: various bugfixes for guest control execution
- Webservice: use own log file, with log rotation to limit size

Source: Changelog for VM VirtualBox 4.0

No comments: