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.
• Oracle 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 Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.8 Build 71778
You can download VM VirtualBox 4.0.8 Build 71778 from website Download Oracle VM VirtualBox or click here to download Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0.8 Build 71778 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 4.0.8 Build 71778
- Mac OS X hosts: fixed incompatibility with recent Mac OS X versions in 64-bit mode (bug #8474)
- Mac OS X hosts: fixed incompatibility with hosts with more than 16 cores (bug #8389)
- Mac OS X hosts: fixed painting corruptions on a second monitor in 64-bit mode (bug #7606)
- GUI: restored functionality to set an empty host key to disallow any host key combination (4.0.6 regression; bug #8793)
- VBoxManage: added controlvm screenshotpng subcommand for saving the screenshot of a running VM in PNG format
- VBoxHeadless: fixed potential crash during shutdown (Windows hosts only)
- NAT: built-in services use the correct Ethernet addresses in Ethernet header and in ARP requests
- Host-only networking: fixed adapter reference counting
- E1000: fixed rare guest crashes with Linux SMP guests (bug #8755)
- SATA: fixed guest disk corruption under rare circumstances (only relevant for guests with more than 2GB RAM; bug #8826)
- Storage: fixed data corruption after a snapshot was taken with asynchronous I/O enabled (bug #8498)
- Floppy: several improvement
- HPET: another fix for time jumps (bug #8707)
- USB: removed assumption that string descriptors are null-terminated (Windows hosts only)
- 3D support: fixed a potential crash when resizing the guest window
- 3D support: fixed GNOME 3 rendering under Ubuntu 11.04 and Fedora 15
- Snapshots: fixed another bug which could lose entries in the media registry when restoring a snapshot (bug #8363)
- Shared Folders: don't stop mounting the other valid folders if one host folder is inaccessible (4.0.6 regression)
- Linux Additions: check whether gcc and make are installed before building kernel modules (bug #8795)
- Solaris Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.10
- Guest Additions: fixed inappropriate Guest Additions update notification when using vendor-specific version suffixes (bug #8844)
Source: Changelog for Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.0
No comments:
Post a Comment