A powerful virtualization software

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, VirtualBox is now the just professional-quality virtualization solution that is as well Open Source Software.

VirtualBox is a package of strong x86 virtualization software for enterprise as well as home use.

These are the main features of this software

• 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.
• Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlike any other virtualization software, VirtualBox completely 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.
• Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and permits you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on the host.
• Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has special software that is 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).
• 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.
• 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 instance, 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 as well comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don't need to hack the source to write a recent interface for VirtualBox.

· Shared folders. Like many other virtualization solutions, for easy data exchange between hosts and guests, VirtualBox permits for declaring certain host directories as "shared folders", that can then be accessed from within virtual machines.

What's new in this release

• Clipboard: fixed a buffer overflow (Linux host)
• Clipboard: fixed a SEGFAULT on VM exit (Linux host)
• Clipboard: Windows host/guest fixes
• VRDP: reset RDP updates after resize to forbid obsolete updates
• VRDP: reset modifer keys on RDP_INPUT_SYNCHRONIZE
• VRDP: workaround for scrambled icons with a guest video mode of 16bpp
• VRDP: sync NumLock / CapsLock sync over VRDP
• VRDP: fixed the Pause/Break keys over VRDP
• VRDP: netAddress fixes
• VRDP: fixed crash when querying VRDP properties
• ACPI: implemented the sleep button event
• VGA: don’t overwrite guest’s VRAM when displaying a blank screen
• VGA: reset VRAM access handers after a fullscreen update
• NAT: update the DNS server IP address on every DNS packet sent by the guest
• PXE: fix for PXE-EC8 error on soft reboot
• Network: don’t crash if a network card is enabled but not attached
• Network: guest networking stopped completely after taking a snapshot
• Network: host interface fixes for Solaris guests
• Network: fixed MAC address check
• USB: several minor fixes
• USB: virtualize an EHCI controller
• Floppy: fixed inverted write protect flag
• ATA/IDE: fixed SuSE 9.1 CD read installer regression
• API: fixed several memory leaks
• API: don’t crash when trying to access the settings of a VM when some other VMs are not accessible
• API: don’t crash when trying to create a VM with a duplicate name
• VMM: fixed code for overriding CPUID values
• VMM: workaround for missed cpuid patch (some Linux guests refuse to boot on multi-core CPUs)
• VMM: with VT-x a pending interrupt could be cleared behind our back
• VMM: patch code and disassembler updates
• VMM: properly restore CR4 after leaving VT-x mode
• VMM: improved compatibility with FreeBSD guests
• GUI: don’t start the kernel timer if no VM is active (Linux host)
• GUI: fixed NumLock / CapsLock synchronizazion on Windows hosts
• GUI: don’t accept empty paths for serial/parallel ports in XML
• GUI: remember the last active VM
• GUI: pre-select attached media in the disk manager when opened from the VM settings dialog
• GUI: allow to enter unicode characters to the name of the registration dialog
• GUI: fixed registration dialog crashes
• GUI: fixed accelerators in German translation
• PulseAudio backend
• USB 2.0 support

· Shared Folders: fixed memory leaks ...