Download VirtualBox 4.0.6

Oracle has released the third update to version 4.0 of VirtualBox with version 4.0.6. This program can be used to install other operating systems on a computer in a virtual environment. In this way it is possible to use different OS’s on the same hardware. VirtualBox is available for Windows XP and above, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris, and is capable of many guest operating systems to turn.

VirtualBox is available in two versions. The full version has additional functionality, such as support for USB ports and the remote display protocol, but is only free for private use and evaluation purposes. The extra functionality is closed source and is therefore not present in the open source version. It may, however, be used in commercial environments, provided you install it yourself on the PC. New in version 4.0 is, among other things, that the program is now offered as a basic package and that it contains extra functionality in separate extension packs. The following changes and improvements have been made in this update:

The following items were fixed and/or added:

• 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 (eg 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 behavior
• 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 behavior) (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 (4.0.2 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 bug fixes for guest control execution
• Webservice: use own log file, with log rotation to limit size

VirtualBox 4.0.0 screenshot, click on the image for a larger version.