Download VirtualBox 1.4.0

VirtualBox allows you to set up a virtual machine under Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. In this way it is possible, for example, to run multiple Linux environments under Windows or Mac OS X. VirtualBox has been available since the beginning of this year under two licenses, a GPL version and a closed sourceversion that has some useful functions received extra. Think, for example, of an iSCSI initiator or an RDP server for each virtual machine. The developers have released a new version with 1.4.0 as the version number. The list of changes looks like this:

General:

• added support for OS X hosts
• added support for AMD64 hosts
• signed all executables and device drivers on Windows

GUI:

• added user interface for Shared Folders
• added context menu for network adapters
• added VM description field for taking notes
• always restore guest mouse pointer when entering VM window (Windowss host)
• added configuration options for clipboard synchronization
• improved keyboard handling on Linux hosts
• added first run wizard
• improved boot device order dialog
• auto-resize did not work after save/restore
• restore original window size when returning from fullscreen mode
• fixed screen update when switching to fullscreen mode
• the size of the VM window was sometimes reset to 640×480
• added localizationss
• various minor improvements

VBoxManage:

• added convertdd command

API:

• automatically start and terminate VBoxSVC on Linux and OS X hosts

VMM:

• increased startup performance due to lazy memory allocation
• significantly increased maximum guest memory size
• fixed issues with V86 mode
• support V86 extensions (VME)
• support guests with a full GDT
• fixed boot hangs for some Linux kernels
• improved FreeBSD and OpenBSD support
• improved performance of guests that aggressively patch kernel code (very recent Linux 2.6 kernels)
• added workaround for a design flaw in AMD AM2 CPUs where the timestamp counter shows large differences among CPU cores
• fixed Linux guests with grsecurity
• fixed issue on 2G/2G Linux kernels (even 1G/3G kernels should work)
• fixed Linux detection of Local APIC on non-Intel and non-AMD CPUs
• timing improvements with high host system loads (VM starvation)
• experimental AMD SVM hardware virtualization support now also handles real and protected mode without paging
• added system time offset parameter to allow for VMs to run in the past or future
• provide an MPS 1.4 table if the IOAPIC is enabled

RDP:

• allow binding the RDP server to a specific interface
• added support for clipboard synchronization
• fixed problems with OS X RDP client
• added support for multiple simultaneous connections to one VM
• added support for MS RDP6 clients (Vista)

Storage:

• experimental support for VMDK images (writethrough mode only, no snapshots yet)
• raw host disk support, including individual partitions

IDE:

• improve CHS geometry detection
• fixed problem that only one VM could open an immutable image

WET:

• allow more than one card configured for NAT networking
• pass first entry in DNS search list (Linux host) or primary DNS suffix (Windows host) as domain name in DHCP
• support UDP broadcasts, which enables using Windows shares
• only warn if the name server could not be determined, no fatal error anymore
• fix a potential problem with incorrect memory allocation

Internal Networking:

• fixed issue on Windows hosts

Host Interface Networking:

• fixed sporadic crashes on interface creation/destruction (Windows host)
• reworked TAP handling for Linux 2.6.18+ compatibility

PXE:

• show error for unsupported V86 case
• small fix for parsing PXE menu entry without boot server IP

Network:

• fixed network card hang after save/restore

USB:

• Rewrote Windows USB handling without the need for a filter driver
• Possible to steal arbitrary devices in Windows

serial:

• added serial ports with support for named pipes (local domain sockets) on the host

audio:

• fixed problem with ALSA on Linux before 2.6.18 blocking other ALSA clients on the system
• fixed problem with ALSA on AMD64 hosts

Input:

• fixed PS/2 mouse detection in Win 3.x guests

Shared Folders:

• fixed VM save/restore behavior
• functionality and stability fixes
• allow non admin users to map folders

Additions:

• added clipboard synchronization

Windows Additions:

• fixed dynamic resolution changes after save/restore
• added AMD PCNet driver for Windows Vista guests (with kind permission from AMD)

Linux Additions:

• fixed a dependency problem which caused the vboxadd kernel module sometimes start after the X server
• make VBox version visible in Linux modules with modinfo
• make X11 guest video driver accept arbitrary X resolutions
• make X11 setup work if /tmp uses a separate file system
• better support unknown distributions

Linux Installer:

• force a non-executable stack for all binaries and shared libraries
• make it work on SELinux-enabled systems
• ship VBoxTunctl

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