Download VirtualBox 5.0 RC 1

Oracle has now released the first release candidate of VirtualBox version 5.0 after four beta releases. VirtualBox can be used to install other operating systems in a virtual environment on a computer. In this way it is possible to use different operating systems on the same hardware side by side and at the same time. VirtualBox is available for Windows XP and above, OS X, Linux, and Solaris, and is capable of many guest operating systems to turn.

Version 5.0 of VirtualBox includes support for para-virtualization under Windows and Linux, which should bring performance improvements. Furthermore, more instruction sets from modern processors are supported, there is drag&drop to and from virtual machines and disk images can now be encrypted. The most important improvements since beta 4 are listed for you below.

Incomplete list of changes since VirtualBox 5.0 Beta 4:

• GUI: NLS fixes. NLS strings are now frozen.
• GUI: Improved HiDPI support for Windows host, icons/size-hint adjustments.
• GUI: Use fast scaling mechanism for integer scale-factors (sa here).
• Separate UI/VM: fixed completely broken re-attaching to a headless VM.
• Drag and drop: fixed hang when reporting host errors such as inaccessible (locked) files.
• PCNet: OpenStep fix (bug #10545)
• Host-only networking: an attempt to fix some VERR_SUPDRV_COMPONENT_NOT_FOUND problems
• NAT: Don’t force reset/drop all connections when link goes down
• AHCI: fixed a possible hang during VM shutdown
• Audio: fix audio output if the default output device changes, before this fix it would always stream to the output device being the default when the VM was started
• VBoxSVC: don’t keep the support driver permanently open
• VBoxManage addencpassword: read the command line from the console or from a file
• vbox-img: added resize command
• X11 Additions: fix for X.org servers with RandR 1.1