VirtualBox - how to create, configure and use a virtual machine. VirtualBox virtual machine overview Virtualbox requirements

Year of issue: 2013
Version: 4.2.18.88780 Final
Developer: Oracle
Platform: XP/Vista/7/8
Bit depth: 32bit, 64bit
Interface language: Multilingual (Russian present)
Tablet: Not required

System requirements:
- Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
- Windows 7 (32/64-bit)
- Windows Vista (32/64-bit)
- Windows 2000
- Windows XP (32/64-bit) Works, with Additions
- Windows Server 2008 (32/64-bit, also R2)
- Windows Server 2003 (32/64-bit)
-Windows NT
- Minimum 512MB free random access memory
- Minimum 200MB of free hard disk space

VirtualBox- a special application for creating in PC memory virtual computers. Each virtual computer can contain an arbitrary set of virtual devices and a separate operating system. The scope of application of virtual computers is very wide - from performing software testing functions to creating entire networks that are easy to scale, distribute the load and protect.

There are versions of VirtualBox, designed for installation on almost all operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris. Any type of operating system can also be used as a “guest” operating system. OS, including Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, W7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux, and OpenBSD.

Among the main features of the program are the following:
- VirtualBox can be controlled either through the GUI interface or through the command line.
- To expand the functions of the program, a special SDK kit has been developed.
- Parameters of virtual machines are described in XML format and do not depend in any way on the physical computer on which the system runs. Therefore, virtual computers in the VirtalBox format are easy to transfer from one PC to another.
- When using Windows or Linux operating systems on “guest” computers, you can use special utilities, making it much easier to switch between physical and virtual computers.
- To quickly exchange files between a guest and a physical PC, you can create so-called “Shared folders”, which are simultaneously accessible from both of these machines.
- VirtualBox allows you to connect USB devices to virtual computers, allowing virtual machines to work with them directly.
- VirtualBox fully supports the protocol remote access RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol). The virtual machine can work as an RDP server, allowing you to manage it remotely.

Extension Pack adds the following features:
- The virtual USB 2.0 (EHCI) device; see the section called “USB settings”.
- VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VRDP) support; see the section called “Remote display (VRDP support)”.
- Intel PXE boot ROM with support for the E1000 network card.
- Experimental support for PCI passthrough on Linux hosts; see the section called “PCI passthrough”.

Installation:
- Launch VirtualBox, go to the menu File » Properties » Plugins and add the downloaded file with the extension .vbox-extpack

Virtualization technologies have recently attracted great interest not only among large companies, which use them to increase the efficiency of information infrastructure as part of integrated solutions. End users have also seen the benefits of using desktop virtualization platforms both at work, in daily activities, and at home. The many options for using virtual machines, widely advertised by virtualization platform vendors, with the increasing power of consumer hardware platforms, are gradually beginning to be seriously considered by users as reliable tools for increasing the efficiency of working with various software and operating systems. Virtualization technologies allow you to simultaneously run several virtual machines with operating systems (guest OS) on one physical computer (host).

Moreover, if the virtualization platform is used as part of the work of an enterprise, the requirements for it are undoubtedly higher than the requirements for “home” virtual machines. If in a corporate environment the most important things are reliability, functionality, flexibility and the ability to integrate with existing infrastructure, then at home it is, first of all, the freeness of the platform itself, ease of use and performance. At home, virtual machines can be used for various purposes, the main ones being:

  • Creation of “portable” isolated user environments with software installed in them, aimed at solving a certain range of tasks. For example, there is no need to reboot the operating system home computer installing various specific programs that are not used by other users. You can create a virtual machine with the necessary software (for example, design software) installed in it and launch it only as needed. At the same time, you can easily transfer it to another workstation and be sure that the registry, system files and the host system settings will remain untouched.
  • Creating secure environments for accessing the Internet. If a Trojan horse or virus causes harm inside a virtual machine, you can delete this virtual machine and create a new one, while all data on the host system will be reliably protected.
  • Experiment with different software and operating systems. The ability to simultaneously run multiple operating systems in virtual machines allows you to use various programs in the OS you need and ensure data transfer between them. Of course, virtual machines open up wide opportunities for learning both new operating systems and setting up various network services and protocols for interaction between different operating systems.

Of course, the options for using virtual machines at home don’t end there. Users are coming up with more and more new ways to use virtual machines, and also use various management tools and utilities to improve the usability of working with them. virtual machines. At the same time, virtualization platform manufacturers consider home users as a fairly promising market segment and are trying to make the deployment and use of virtual machines as simple as possible.

Overview of existing desktop virtualization platforms

It so happens that in the virtualization platform industry, users are accustomed to traditional products that develop over several years and provide the required level of functionality. However, the leader in virtualization software, VMware, focuses mainly on commercial use its platforms, and although its powerful platform virtualization VMware Workstation 6 is the best at the moment in many respects, it has one undeniable disadvantage - it is not free. Users can also download from the site a free product called VMware Player, which is designed to “play” virtual machines, but they cannot be created in it. Product VMware Server is aimed at use in a corporate environment for virtualizing small business servers and is also not suitable for home users.

Microsoft offers users a free product called Virtual PC, which, however, does not have the necessary functionality to meet the requirements of all categories of users. It should also be noted that Virtual PC is only available for workstations with Windows operating systems, which also excludes a certain segment of users.

Parallels also offers desktop virtualization platforms Parallels Workstation for Windows and Linux hosts, as well as Parallels Desktop for Mac OS X, which are also not free. In addition, due to the successful sales of the Parallels Desktop product, the Parallels company, by the way, owned by the Russian company SWsoft, somewhat suspended the development of the Parallels Workstation product and did not release its new versions for quite some time.

Thus, considering the market for popular desktop virtualization systems, we can say that there are either good, but paid platforms, or free, but insufficiently functional products that do not meet all user requirements, namely:

  • cross-platform
  • Supports most host and guest operating systems
  • the ability to use convenient virtual machine management tools

It is worth noting that proponents of solutions Open Source would like to use a free virtualization platform with open source code, which is, for example, the Xen platform.

For a long time, the virtualization platform market was in limbo regarding the home user segment: on the one hand, virtualization system manufacturers were increasing functionality and offering new management tools, on the other hand, end users did not want to pay for them. In this regard, some companies had to provide free virtualization systems (for example, VMware Server and Microsoft Virtual Server), which mainly covered the needs of corporate users. But the question of using virtual machines at home still remained open.

In 2006, a new player appeared in the desktop virtualization platform market. The German company InnoTek presented the VirtualBox product for desktop virtualization with open source code, in the development of which (with the exception of some components) anyone can take part. VirtualBox is a worthy candidate to fill a void among desktop virtualization platforms.

About the VirtualBox platform


The platform is a desktop virtualization system for Windows, Linux and Mac OS hosts, supporting Windows, Linux, OS/2 Warp, OpenBSD and FreeBSD operating systems as guest operating systems. After several years of development, InnoTek released a limited version of the product as open source under the GNU General Public License (GPL) in January 2007. Full version The closed source product is also available for free personal use. If the product will be used in a production environment, it is necessary to purchase licenses, the terms of which can be obtained from InnoTek. By the way, at the moment, InnoTek, in addition to the VirtualBox platform, is developing a new hypervisor-based virtualization platform, closely related to the Windows operating system, in collaboration with Microsoft. Currently VirtualBox includes the following features:

  • native x86 virtualization that does not require support for Intel VT or AMD-V hardware technologies (which, however, can be enabled in the settings)
  • friendly user interface (built with Qt3)
  • support for Windows, Linux and Mac OS host systems (the version for Mac OS is currently in beta)
  • Availability of Guest VM Additions to simplify interaction with host operating systems and optimize their performance
  • support for multiprocessor and multicore systems (guest only, no support for virtual SMP to represent multiprocessor in guests)
  • stability (compared to other Open Source solutions)
  • audio device virtualization support
  • high performance (according to many experts, higher than that of VMware products)
  • support various types network interaction (NAT, Host Networking via Bridged, Internal)
  • support for a tree of saved virtual machine states (snapshots), which can be rolled back from any state of the guest system
  • description of virtual machine settings in XML format
  • Shared Folders support for simple exchange files between host and guest systems

Emulated hardware environment

The VirtualBox product emulates the following components hardware in a virtual machine:

  • hard drives are emulated in a special VDI (Virtual Disk Images) container format, which is currently not compatible with virtual disk formats from other manufacturers
  • The video adapter is emulated as a standard VESA with 8 MB of video memory, while installing Guest VM Additions (for Windows and Linux hosts only) allows you to increase the performance of the virtual video adapter and dynamically change the size of the virtual machine window
  • audio controller on Intel based ICH AC"97
  • the network adapter is emulated as an AMD PCNet interface
  • The closed-source edition also emulates USB controllers, with USB devices inserted into the host connectors being automatically picked up by the guest system. Also, if the virtual machine acts as an RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) server, then USB devices will also be visible in the client

The VirtualBox platform executes guest code natively (directly transferring instructions to the host processor). This approach works well for code running in the third guest ring; guest code running in ring zero that requires privileged instructions needs to be intercepted by the virtualization platform. For this purpose, VirtualBox uses an original approach: code executed in the zero ring of the guest system is executed in the first ring of the host system, which is not used in the Intel architecture.

Unique VirtualBox Features

In addition to the standard functions inherent in most desktop virtualization systems, the VirtualBox platform also has a set of unique features unique to it:

  • Clearly expressed modularity of the system
    The VirtualBox platform has a modular architecture with well-described components and provides convenient interfaces for accessing virtual machines that allow you to control guest systems both through the GUI and through the command line and remotely. In addition, InnoTek provides an excellent Software Development Kit, and since the platform is open source, no additional effort is required to write an extension to the system. Currently underway big job for porting the product to various host platforms and developers are provided with all necessary tools and interfaces for modifying VirtualBox.
  • The virtual machine can act as an RDP server
    Unlike other virtualization platforms, VirtualBox can act as an RDP server and be managed by any client that supports RDP protocol. The USB over RDP function is also supported. It is worth noting that VMware also provides the Act as RDP Server function in the recently released VMware Workstation 6 platform, so this VirtualBox function cannot be called so unique at the moment.
  • iSCSI initiator
    The iSCSI initiator component is one of the closed parts of the VirtualBox platform. It allows you to use external iSCSI devices as virtual disks in the guest system without additional support from the guest OS side.

Supported Guest and Host Systems

InnoTek and independent developers taking part in the development of the VirtualBox platform are constantly expanding the list of supported guest and host systems. Currently the product supports the following host operating systems:

  • Operating systems of the Windows family (2000/XP/2003/Vista)
  • Linux platforms including:
    • Ubuntu 7.04 (“Feisty Fawn”)
    • Ubuntu 6.10 ("Edgy Eft")
    • Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (“Dapper Drake”)
    • Debian 3.1 ("Sarge")
    • Debian 4.0 ("Etch")
    • openSUSE 10.2
    • Mandriva Linux 2007.1
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4
    • Univention Corporate Server 1.3-2
  • Mac OS X (currently in beta)
  • OS/2 Warp (experimental)

It should be noted that at the moment the porting of VirtualBox to the OS/2 platform has not yet been completed, and on the developer’s website there are only general instructions for assembling the system. When using VirtualBox on this platform, there are numerous problems that developers must solve.

The list of guests supported by VirtualBox is very extensive and can easily compete with commercial virtualization platforms. The following guest operating systems are currently supported:

Guest OSCurrent statusNote
Windows OS family
Windows VistaNeed to install driver network card manually (described in user documentation)
Windows 2000Working, Guest VM Additions available
Windows XPWorking, Guest VM Additions available
Windows Server 2003Working, Guest VM Additions available
Windows NTWorking, Guest VM Additions availableSome problems with older service packs, it is recommended to have a service pack version of at least 6a
Windows 98
Linux OS family
Ubuntu 5.10/6.06 Desktop/7.04 herd 5Working, Guest VM Additions available
Ubuntu 6.06 Server/6.10Working, Guest VM Additions availableThere may be problems loading the OS
Debian 3.1Working, Guest VM Additions available
SUSE 9/10.0/10.2Working, Guest VM Additions available
Mandrake 10.1Working, Guest VM Additions available
Fedora Core 1/4/5/6Working, Guest VM Additions available
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and 4Working, Guest VM Additions available
Red Hat Linux 9Working, Guest VM Additions available
Red Hat Linux 7Does not work
Linspire 4.5Working, Guest VM Additions available
Slackware 10.1Working, Guest VM Additions available
Conectiva 10Working, Guest VM Additions available
Xandros 3Does not work
BSD OS family
FreeBSDPartially workingKnown problems with the FreeBSD 6.2 version
PC-BSD 1.3Does not work
OpenBSDWorks, but Guest VM Additions are not available
Other OS
DOSWorksLimited testing
OS/2Partially workingRequires Intel VT support
Novell Netware 6.5Does not work
BeOS 5Does not work
SyllableDoes not work
VisopsysDoes not work
ReactOSDoes not work
Solaris 10Partially workingDoes not work stably on all versions, network problems

InnoTek also states that almost all Linux operating systems with kernel versions 2.4 and 2.6 should run as guests. For achievement better performance Kernel version 2.6.13 is recommended.

As you can see from the list above, many Linux platforms are supported, which provides ample opportunities for learning to work with them in virtual machines based on VirtualBox.

How VirtualBox works

The VirtualBox GUI has two main windows: the main window and the virtual machine console.

When a VirtualBox virtual machine starts, three processes are usually launched, which can be observed in the task manager on Windows systems or the Linux system monitor:

  1. Graphical interface of the control window.
  2. Another similar process started with the startvm parameter, which means the GUI will act as a wrapper for the virtual machine.
  3. Automatically created VBoxSVC service process required to track the number and status of running virtual machines (since they can be started different ways).

A virtual machine with a guest system running in it encapsulates the necessary implementation details of the guest OS and behaves in relation to the host system as a normal application.

In the guest system, the VirtualBox virtual machine implementation is presented to the user in two ways:

  • A standard client-server architecture that allows you to control the behavior of virtual machines in various ways using the COM/XPCOM API. For example, a guest system can be started via the GUI and stopped using the utility command line VboxManage. This utility may also perform some functions that are not available from GUI user.
  • Frontend/backend architecture, which is an encapsulation of x86 virtualization in the VBoxVMM.dll libraries on Windows platform and VBoxVMM.so on Linux (backend) and implementation of virtual machine management in several ways (frontend):
    • Custom GUI based on Qt
    • VboxManage utility
    • GUI based on SDL, which has more capabilities than the Qt GUI and is aimed at using virtual machines in a production environment
    • Ability to manage virtual machines using the built-in RDP server in the virtual machine

The process of installing a guest system on the VirtualBox platform is very simple and does not require additional effort from the user. When creating a virtual machine, you must select the type of guest system to install, determine the amount of RAM allocated to it, and create a virtual disk that is either fixed in size or dynamically expanding as it becomes full in the guest system. The further installation process is the same as in other virtualization platforms. After the guest OS is installed, you must also install Guest VM Additions in order to optimize the guest system and improve its interaction with the host OS.

Network communication between virtual machines in VirtualBox can be of three types:

  • NAT
    The virtual machine “hides” behind the host’s NAT server and can initiate connections to a network external to it, but it is impossible to initiate a connection to such a virtual machine from an external network.
  • Host Interface Networking
    In this case, the virtual machine shares the resources of the physical adapter with the host operating system and is accessible from the external network as an independent computer.
  • Internal Networking
    A type of network interaction for building a virtual network within the host, when there is no need to exit the virtual machine to an external network and access it from the outside.

Communication between the virtual machine emulator QEMU and VirtualBox

InnoTek, which has been developing the VirtualBox platform for several years, relied in its developments on one of the oldest virtual machine emulators, QEMU. The VirtualBox project is related to this platform in two ways:

  • on the one hand, when creating emulated devices, InnoTek focused on representations of virtual equipment in QEMU,
  • on the other hand, InnoTek, in collaboration with the creators of QEMU, used the recompilation mechanism as an exception handler when the Virtual Machine Monitor of the VirtualBox platform cannot correctly handle the exception when executing guest code in real mode.

According to the VirtualBox developers, the techniques they borrowed from QEMU allowed them to save a significant amount of time and increase the reliability of the platform.

VirtualBox Open Development Features

In addition to full-featured versions of VirtualBox for free use, InnoTek offers limited open source versions of the platform for various host systems. The VirtualBox source code is stored in the Subversion (svn) version control system and can be downloaded from the InnoTek website. To extract the platform source code from the online Subversion server, in the operating room Linux system you need to run the command: svn co http://virtualbox.org/svn/vbox/trunk vbox

Also latest version The source codes of the VirtualBox system can be downloaded in a single archive from the downloads page at: .

InnoTek also maintains a public bug tracker on its website, where you can find out about all the problems currently present and create an error report by entering a description of the problem when working with the platform into the VirtualBox error database.

And, of course, everyone can take part in the development of an open version of the platform by joining the Open Source community on the website.

Advantages and disadvantages of VirtualBox

Having considered the main features of VirtualBox, we can say that this virtualization platform definitely has a future, since it is ready to fill an empty niche in the field of desktop virtualization systems as a powerful, productive, convenient and, most importantly, free platform. The undoubted advantage of the system is its cross-platform and support from the Open Source community. The large list of supported guest and host operating systems opens up wide possibilities for using VirtualBox in the context of various use cases.

Among the free platforms, VirtualBox is definitely one of the best at the moment. At the same time, InnoTek focuses not only on end users. The presence of features such as an RDP server and iSCSI initiator suggests that the platform can be seriously used in a production environment in the future. The friendly user interface coupled with high performance VirtualBox now has many adherents all over the world.

Meanwhile, VirtualBox also has some problems: first of all, these are stability problems on many host platforms and the lack of compatibility of the virtual disk format with other virtualization systems. Also, at the moment, the functionality of the system is inferior to commercial platforms (in particular, VMware Workstation 6), but the pace of development of VirtualBox suggests that its functionality will soon increase significantly. Try using VirtualBox virtual machines, and perhaps this platform will take its rightful place among the necessary software on your desktop.

In order not to expose the OS installed on the computer to risk, but to be able to explore both various software and the functionality of any other OS, there is a special type of program on the software market for creating virtual computers. Such programs create a virtual environment with emulation computer hardware. And you can install the same virtual OS on this emulator. The most famous such program is VirtualBox from the American developer Oracle.

1. Features of the program

Free, functionality, cross-platform, Russification, intuitive interface, simplicity and clarity of software processes and settings, step-by-step instructions for creating virtual computers - these are the main advantages of VirtualBox, thanks to which it seriously beats its competitors.

Thus, one of the main competitors - the VMware Workstation program - is a paid commercial software. You can only use VMware Player for free - this is a greatly reduced functionality version of the Workstation program. While VirtualBox provides full functionality for free. Plus, VirtualBox exists in versions for installation not only on Windows and Linux OS, like VMware Workstation, but the former can also be installed on Mac OS X and Solaris.

And VMware Workstation does not have the ability to adjust video memory, like VirtualBox.

Both of these programs also have a common competitor from Microsoft- Hyper-V, which is included with some versions of Windows. And, naturally, you can only work with it as part of studying the ubiquitous Windows OS. The program does not support either Linux or Mac OS X.

VirtualBox has the widest selection of systems that can be installed as a virtual OS - most versions of Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris, including both 32-bit and 64-bit. Some even manage to create an Android emulator using VirtualBox.

As you can see, if you are determined to take the path of experimenting with a virtual computer environment, VirtualBox is the ideal tool for this.

2. Minimum system requirements

Concerning VirtualBox installations not in active virtual computer mode, here the program is not demanding on hardware resources - the bare minimum is required to install the program:
— 512 MB of RAM,
— 200 MB of hard disk space for installation,
- a processor with a frequency according to the requirements of the OS itself, for example in the case of Windows XP it is a Pentium of at least 300 MHz or its analogue from AMD.

But, we repeat, these are system requirements purely for installing VirtualBox on a physical (main) OS. The active virtual computer mode will require much more system resources, and the specific requirements will already be determined by that very virtual (guest) OS.

VirtualBox creates a virtual computer based on the hardware characteristics of a physical PC, some of which are automatically emulated into the virtual computer - for example, a processor, video card, CD/DVD drive, USB ports. And part - RAM and occupied disk space - are emulated according to the settings that you set during the process of creating a virtual computer with the program. Some hardware characteristics of the virtual computer can later be changed by setting them to smaller boundary parameters that VirtualBox has the right to use. After all, a virtual computer in a working state will borrow the power of the processor, video card, and RAM from the physical PC.

How much of the RAM and disk space can be given to a virtual computer when it is created by VirtualBox?

It is recommended to allocate no more than half of the available RAM on a physical PC to the virtual OS. But for the virtual OS to work, a minimum of 512 MB to 1 GB of RAM may be required. For example, for more or less normal functioning of virtual Windows XP or Linux, a minimum of 512 MB of RAM will be required.

And to install Windows 7 or 8 (8.1) on a virtual computer, the minimum RAM will be 1 GB.

The virtual OS will permanently occupy space on the computer’s hard drive in the form of a program file. And if many people will probably have an extra 4-5 GB minimum for Windows XP or Linux without any problems, then about 20-25 GB for full operation of Windows 7 or 8 (8.1) OS, for example, owners of old PC builds with a hard drive of some 160 GB will have to be taken care of in advance, saying goodbye to file junk that has not been used for a long time.

3. How to download the program for free

On the official website of the developer, the installer of the VirtualBox program in current version 4.3.8 can be downloaded absolutely free.

4. How to install the program

To install the program, just run the downloaded installer from the browser downloads. VirtualBox is installed as standard, although in English. Don’t worry if this language is not familiar to you: all you need to do is press “ Next" - i.e. " Further».

Moreover, all the active components with which VirtualBox is installed will be needed for its full operation.

The only thing is that during the installation of the program the connection with local network. This is required for installation network drivers so that the Internet works on the virtual computer. However, VirtualBox will issue a corresponding notification about this, albeit in English.

No need to worry about this, you can safely press the installation command - “ Install».

Windows 7 and 8 (8.1) are initially distrustful of third-party software, so they constantly ask for administrator rights, permission to trust some developer, or give them permission to install individual components. Therefore, if during installation you additionally need to confirm the installation of the VirtualBox components - USB Support (USB port support) or VirtualBox Networking (network support), such confirmation, of course, must be given.

After this, the program will complete the installation process, and if you do not uncheck the automatic start, immediately after pressing the end button – “ Finish“—VirtualBox will appear before you in all its glory, and with a Russian-language interface.

That's it - the installation process of the program itself is completed. But what lies ahead is creating a virtual computer and installing the virtual OS of your choice on it.

5. Create a virtual computer

There is no mistake when creating a virtual computer using VirtualBox: after installation, the only active button will be visible in the main program window - “ Create", in fact, where you need to click. In the window that appears, you need to give the virtual computer a name, select the OS and its specific version.

Click " Next».

In the next VirtualBox settings window, you need to set the value of RAM that you give to the virtual computer for temporary use when it is active - in fact, what was mentioned above. Use the slider to set the desired value or enter the exact number of RAM in the field next to it.

Do not go to the red line - this will transfer half the hardware power of a real computer to a virtual computer, and in cases with low-power machines there may not be enough performance to run the main OS, not to mention virtual environments. The minimum recommendations of VirtualBox itself are too small for full-fledged work, therefore, as mentioned above, you should not allocate less than 512 MB of RAM for running less resource-intensive operating systems, and less than 1 GB of RAM for more resource-intensive ones.

Click " Next».

« Select your hard drive" - this is exactly what you need to do in the next VirtualBox setup window. And here for most it would be advisable to leave the default item – “ Create a new virtual hard disk».

Click " Create».

The following window will appear with several virtual hard disk storage file formats that VirtualBox can work with. You must leave the default option – “ VDI».

Click " Next».

With the type of virtual hard disk - the next VirtualBox settings window - it is better to do the same as above - leave the option as default.

A fixed hard drive of a virtual computer will be more efficient in operation.

Click " Next».

In the next window, VirtualBox will prompt you to name your virtual hard disk. This is not so important, so you can leave the default name, taken from the name of the virtual computer itself. It is much more important to designate a folder to store the virtual hard disk file and correctly determine its size.

The minimum size of a virtual hard disk was discussed above; we only note that here we need to proceed purely from the available space on the physical hard disk. Plus, you need to take into account that in addition to installing the virtual OS itself, a certain place will be occupied by various service environments and, in fact, the programs being tested.

By default, the storage folder for the virtual hard disk file is registered on the system disk of the physical PC, where many may not have room for the “heavy” Windows 7 and 8 (8.1). And why bother? system disk? It is better to choose a storage location on a non-system drive. Click the folder icon and select a storage location.

Click " Create».

Wait while VirtualBox creates the virtual computer. After this, its name will appear on the left side of the main program window with the note “ Switched off", and on the right side of the window you can see the main hardware parameters.

6. Installing the operating system on a virtual computer

It is necessary to prepare the image in advance installation disk with the selected operating system or paste boot disk into the CD/DVD drive of a physical PC.

In the main VirtualBox window, launch the created virtual computer using the button Launch" Then, in the automatically appearing window for selecting removable media for booting, select either the installation disk image with the OS, or designate the boot disk located in the CD/DVD drive. To do this, click the browse icon that looks like a folder.

When installing a previously unfamiliar OS for the first time, simply follow the installer's instructions.

Did this article help you?

We have discussed how to install VirtualBox virtual machine on your computer. You can read about why you need a virtual machine and what they are. In this article, we will learn how to create and configure our first virtual machine.

So, we launch VirtualBox using a shortcut on the desktop, and we see the program’s welcome window:

To create a new virtual machine, click the “Create” button at the top left (or the key combination “Ctrl” + “N”).

We can set any name for the virtual machine, in the “type” field we select the type of operating system that you plan to install on the virtual machine (Windows, Linux, Mac, etc.), and in the field below we select the version of the operating system, depending on selected type. Since I already have Windows 7 installed on my computer, let's assume that I want to look at and test Windows 8.1. In this case, I will set the name “Win8.1”, select the type “Microsoft Windows”, and the version “Windows 8.1 (32 bit)”.

The screenshot below shows that my computer has a total of 16 GB (16384 MB) of random access memory (RAM). In order to correctly select the parameters we need, just look at the minimum system requirements for this operating system on the official Microsoft website:

From this we can see that the Windows 8.1 (32 bit) operating system we are installing requires a minimum of 1 GB of RAM. I usually install with a reserve, so I will install 3 GB (3072 MB) of RAM:

You can set the amount of RAM that is convenient for you (but preferably not the entire resource of your computer), and click “Forward”.

Next, we are asked to create a virtual HDD for our virtual machine, or select an existing one. Since we have not created such disks before, we leave the middle menu item “Create a new virtual hard disk” and click “Create”:

The disk type is left as the default one (VDI).

Then we select the name of the file under which we will store the virtual hard disk, its location and size. I'll leave the name "Win8.1" and set the size to 40GB as shown in the image below:

You can set your own parameters (just make sure that there is enough free space in the place where you create your virtual hard disk file), and click the “Create” button. The virtual hard disk creation window appears; you need to wait for it to complete:

As a result, if everything is done correctly, you get a ready-to-use virtual machine. For me it looks like this:

Please note that in the top left, next to the “Create” button, two more buttons “Configure” and “Run” have become active. Click the “Configure” button to make additional settings the newly created virtual machine.

We will also need to configure the very bottom menu item “ Shared folders"so that you can alternative way share files between your main computer and the virtual machine.

Click on the folder icon with a plus sign at the top right and select the folder that will be shared on your computer and virtual machine. I'll create a Shared folder on drive K and check the box so that it will automatically load when the virtual machine starts.

At the moment, our virtual machine is a blank computer without an installed operating system. It can be installed on a virtual machine in several ways, the simplest of which is if you have a disk with a virtual system image, or a regular CD with an operating system, then just go to the “Configure” menu item in the main window of the virtual machine, then go in the “Media” tab, select empty virtual drive CDs, and point it to the path to the disk image with the operating system that you plan to install, or simply point to any CD/DVD drive on your computer into which you inserted your operating system CD.

After this, click the button in the form of a green arrow “Run”, and if everything is done correctly, the installation of the operating system that is on your CD or image will begin.

Sometimes an E_FAIL (0x80004005) error may appear when starting a virtual machine. You can read about how to solve the problem with this error when starting VirtualBox.

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Oracle VM VirtualBox - powerful free system virtualization of x86 and AMD64/Intel64 architectures to create isolated virtual machines with various operating systems for corporate and home users.

The program is absolutely free and entirely in Russian, which makes it very attractive for use on both home and work computers. The system was first made available in 2007 by InnoTek in two versions - open and closed source, both free for non-commercial use. In 2008, the platform was purchased by Sun Microsystems, which is currently developing it.

The platform is a virtualization system for host systems Windows, Linux and Mac OS and provides interaction with guest operating systems Windows (2000/XP/2003/ /Seven, etc.), Linux (Ubuntu/Debian/ OpenSUSE/ Mandriva, etc.) , OpenBSD, FreeBSD, OS/2 Warp.

Program description

Oracle VM VirtualBox is a feature-rich tool for creating isolated virtual machines, offers high performance, and is also the only professional solution, which is freely available and open source under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) v.2.

VirtualBox 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, OS/2 and OpenBSD.

VirtualBox is actively developed with frequent updates and has an ever-growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it works with. VirtualBox is a team effort supported by dedicated companies: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Oracle ensures the product meets professional quality criteria.

Features of VirtualBox Extension Pack

The Extension Pack adds useful new features to the popular virtualization solution VirtualBox.

The set of add-ons includes a USB 2.0 controller (EHCI), which, for example, will allow you to improve the performance of your USB 2.0 devices.

You also get support for the VirtualBox Remote Desktop Protocol (VDRP). Essentially, this allows you to run a virtual machine on one computer while you view and manage it on another.

The Extension Pack also includes support for remote booting of the computer via Intel PXE boot ROM emulation with support for the E1000 network card.

All these possibilities require separate installation package with the "vbox-extpack" extension on top of VirtualBox (to download, go to the "Useful links" section).

Close VirtualBox, download and run the VirtualBox Extension Pack installation file, and VirtualBox will launch the add-on and install it, updating any earlier versions that may have been installed.

VirtualBox: System Requirements

Supported systems

Windows hosts:

  • Windows Vista SP1 and higher (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 (64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 (64-bit)
  • Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows 10 RTM build 10240 (32-bit and 64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 (64-bit)
Mac OS X hosts (64-bit):
  • 10.9 (Mavericks)
  • 10.10 (Yosemite)
  • 10.11 (El Capitan)
Linux hosts (32-bit and 64-bit), including:
  • Ubuntu 12.04 LTS - 16.04
  • Debian GNU/Linux 7 ("Wheezy"), 8 ("Jessie") and 9 ("Stretch")
  • Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, Oracle Linux 6 and 7
  • Redhat Enterprise Linux 5, 6 and 7
  • Fedora Core / Fedora 6 to 24
  • Gentoo Linux
  • openSUSE 11.4 - 13.2
Download from the official website For a more detailed introduction to the Oracle VM VirtualBox platform, you can visit.

Spoiler: Screenshots of the program










Last edited: 01.28.2019

VirtualBox 4.3.10 offers full-screen support for OS X

VirtualBox 4.3.10. While the release primarily offers a series of bug fixes, the solution does include one new feature for OS X users.

VirtualBox is a free application for creating virtual computers. The program supports almost all modern operating systems; Windows, DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux, OpenBSD and others can be used as guest operating systems.

New feature– experimental support for native full-screen mode, which was previously implemented in Mountain Lion and Mavericks. This new option comes with the removal of another: the minimize button in the toolbar.

Other notable improvements include:

  • Ensured correct installation of Linux add-ons in Ubuntu guest environments with the /usr/lib64 directory.
  • Additions for X11 resolve an issue where the VBoxClient process would not terminate correctly, resulting in significant CPU consumption.
  • Improved emulation of some MSR registers.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the creation of compact snapshots under certain conditions.
  • HID LED synchronization between Windows and Mac hosts.
  • Issues in 3D hardware acceleration support have been resolved.


For questions regarding cooperation, please contact us or via correspondence. Free assistance with infection and technical problems appears on the forum, you need to create new topic in the appropriate section.

Any point on the map can be the center of the world. He is neither bad nor good. He just is. There is no virtue or dishonor here. There is only you alone with your conscience. And so on until the race is over, until the end comes, until we turn into the ghosts we seemed to ourselves. (c) film "Legend"

You lose more from indecision than from a wrong decision. (c) Carmela Soprano

New version of VirtualBox 5.0.10 ​


VirtualBox 5.0.10 for Windows hosts x86/amd64


VirtualBox 5.0.10 for OS X hosts amd64


VirtualBox 5.0.10 for Linux hosts


VirtualBox 5.0.10 for Solaris hosts amd64

VirtualBox 5.0.10 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack All supported platforms

Changelog VirtualBox 5.0.10 (released 2015-11-10)

  • VMM: improved support for certain Intel Atom CPUs (bug #14773)
  • VMM: system register emulation fix (5.0 regression; bug #14515)
  • GUI: fixed immediate screenshot issue (bug #14108)
  • GUI: fixed another 3D overlay window reparenting issue when the VM is switched to fullscreen mode on X11 hosts
  • GUI: fixed help index (bug #14722)
  • GUI: fixed state synchronization issue in the VM manager window when VM was paused from its runtime window
  • Audio: fixed suspending/resuming audio streams on VM pause/unpause (bug #14784)
  • Audio: properly reset AC97 audio streams, otherwise there is silence until a non-48 kHz stream is played
  • Audio: fixed a small emulation quirk of the AD1980 codec of the HDA device to make recent linux guests work (bug #14653)
  • USB: serveral fixes for the xHCI controller
  • USB: fixed a crash under certain conditions on hosts with Linux kernels older than version 3.3
  • USB: better identification of certain USB devices
  • NAT: support TCP in DNS proxy (bug #14736)
  • NAT Network: fixed sporadic crashes on Windows hosts (bug #13899)
  • API: when creating differencing images (e.g. as part of a snapshot or cloning a VM) use the same disk image variant as the parent image if possible, which means that e.g. a diff image for a VMDK image split into 2 GB files will also be split (bug #14764)
  • API: event queue handling fixes preventing loss of certain events at runtime (e.g. new webcam attached), particularly important on Mac OS X hosts
  • Webcam: passthrough fix for certain devices (Windows hosts only)
  • VBoxManage: don"t crash on snapshot restorecurrent / edit if the VM has no snapshots
  • VBoxManage: don't crash on controlvm addencpassword (bug #14729)
  • Mac OS X hosts: use the correct kernel on certain hosts
  • Windows hosts: fixed VRDP external authentication
  • Windows hosts: allow to use a shared folder path with extended-length path prefix (5.0 regression; bug #14651)
  • Windows hosts: fix a crash in the netfilter host driver under certain conditions (bug #14799)
  • Windows host installer: documented and fixed public properties which can be used to control the installation to some extent
  • Windows host installer: fixed not starting the actual installation when showing the version information or help dialogs
  • X11 Additions: added basic support for X.Org Server 1.18 (3D requires additional fixes)

New version of VirtualBox 5.0.12 ​


VirtualBox 5.0.12 for Windows hosts x86/amd64

VirtualBox 5.0.12 for OS X hosts amd64


VirtualBox 5.0.12 for Linux hosts

VirtualBox 5.0.12 for Solaris hosts amd64

VirtualBox 5.0.12 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack All supported platforms

Changelog VirtualBox 5.0.12 (released 2015-12-18)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

  • GUI: fixed wrong scrolling behavior in the VM selector window when a VM item is dragged out of the chooser-pane area
  • GUI: fixed the validation of IPv6 port-forwarding rules
  • GUI: suppress the first-run wizard if a CD/DVD medium is inserted using the selector UI
  • GUI: fixed the Ctrl+Break key sequence scan codes (bug )
  • GUI: improved handling of text selection mouse pointer (bug)
  • Host services: fixed a crash during VM shutdown under rare conditions (5.0.6 regression; bug )
  • Shared folders: fixed a sharing violation if a file is opened to check the attributes (Windows hosts only; bug )
  • Webcam: passthrough fix for certain devices (Mac OS X hosts only)
  • XHCI: fixed broken emulation if software virtualization is used
  • XHCI: several fixes
  • 3D: fixed state handling under certain conditions (bug)
  • Audio: several fixes
  • BIOS: added LBA64 support for being able to boot from huge hard disks (bug)
  • EFI: fix for Windows 10 guests
  • ExtPack: before installing an Extension Pack check if there are VMs running to prevent file system locking issues
  • rdesktop-vrdp: source code tarball fixes
  • Windows hosts: fixed hang when using VBoxAuthSimple library for VRDP external authentication (bug)
  • Windows hosts: fixed a regression which prevented it to attach to a physical network adapter having TCP/IP disabled (bug)
  • Windows hosts: fixed a regression which caused multi-port adapters to be shown as a single adapter (bugs , )
  • Windows hosts: fixed a regression which caused created host-only adapters to not appear in the list (bug)
  • Windows hosts: fixed host-only adapter creation issues related to Windows 10 (bugs, )
  • Linux hosts: .desktop file compatibility issue (bug)
  • Linux hosts/guests: fixes for RHEL 7.2 (bug)
  • The command for recompiling the host kernel modules was changed again, to /sbin/rcvboxdrv setup (bug)
  • Linux hosts: some fixes for PCI passthrough (still highly experimental)
  • Linux/Mac OS X hosts: fixed a VM hang during startup under certain circumstances (bug)
  • Solaris hosts: added Python 2.7 bindings
  • Mac OS X hosts: fixed a possible crash when the default input or output audio device changes
  • Mac OS X hosts: fixed a panic under certain conditions
  • Linux Additions: prevent the compiler from doing dead-code elimination on vital code in guest / host communication (bug)
  • Linux Additions: when mounting a shared folder, explicitly pass the share name so that /proc/mounts contains this name instead of "none"
  • Linux Additions: workaround for a systemd problem in conjunction with SELinux which prevented to properly enable the "vboxadd" service during while upgrading the Additions

New version of VirtualBox 5.0.14 ​


VirtualBox 5.0.14 for Windows hosts x86/amd64

VirtualBox 5.0.14 for OS X hosts amd64

VirtualBox 5.0.14 for Linux hosts

VirtualBox 5.0.14 for Solaris hosts amd64

VirtualBox 5.0.14 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack All supported platforms

VirtualBox 5.0.14 Software Developer Kit (SDK) All platforms

New in version 5.0.14

  • Interface: limiting the number of VCPU cores in accordance with the number of physical cores in Mac OS X;
  • Audio: Fixed a bug that prevented loading the saved state of saved guests with HDA emulation;
  • Audio: Fixed a crash when the post-processor compiler fails to initialize;
  • Audio: fixed problem with audio capture in Mac OS X;
  • Storage: fixed possible failure when attaching the same thing multiple times ISO image to one virtual machine;
  • BIOS: correct notification when connecting two floppy drives;
  • USB: Fixed an issue with filters that caused device capture to fail under some circumstances.
  • ExtPack: fixed an incompatibility issue where blacklist extension packages older than version 4.3.30 were not processed correctly;
  • Windows Host Systems: Fixed fallback to previous state, which caused robocopy to fail;
  • Linux host systems: correct creation of symlink /sbin/rcvboxdrv;
  • Mac OS X host systems: several USB fixes in El Capitan;
  • Linux Add-ons: Fixes for Linux 4.5.

WHAT'S NEW

New in version 5.0.16

This is a maintenance version that fixes bugs and includes feature improvements.

(official website, English)

New in version 5.0

  • Support for paravirtualization mode for Windows and Linux guests: significant improvement in guest OS performance through the use of built-in virtualization support on Oracle Linux 7 and Microsoft Windows 7 and higher;
  • Optimized CPU usage: Execute a wide range of CPU instructions in the guest OS, allowing applications to apply latest instructions to equipment for maximum productivity;
  • USB 3.0 device support: Guest OSes can now directly recognize USB 3.0 devices and run at full speed. The guest system can be configured to support USB 1.1, 2.0, 3.0 specifications;
  • Supports two-way drag and drop mode for sharing content between the guest OS and the host system. The drag and drop function allows you to transparently and conveniently copy or open files, folders, etc.;
  • Encryption disk images: data can be encrypted in the image virtual disk right during operation using the industry standard AES algorithm that supports 256-bit encryption keys. The new feature guarantees the security of encrypted data both during periods of activity and when the virtual machine is idle.


For questions regarding cooperation, please contact us or via correspondence. Free help with infections and technical problems is provided on the forum; you must create a new topic in the appropriate section.

Any point on the map can be the center of the world. He is neither bad nor good. He just is. There is no virtue or dishonor here. There is only you alone with your conscience. And so on until the race is over, until the end comes, until we turn into the ghosts we seemed to ourselves. (c) film "Legend"

You lose more from indecision than from a wrong decision. (c) Carmela Soprano

WHAT'S NEW

New in version 5.1

Release 5.1 supports the latest guest OS and host systems, including Mac OS X Yosemite, Windows 10, Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, other Linux OSes and genuine operating systems. Key features of VM VirtualBox 5.1:

  • Improved performance: Significantly improved performance for virtual machines with multiple processors and for network connections.
  • Error reporting tool: The new utility collects information and logs related to the host system and guest system for debugging or analysis.
  • Improved log window: New event logging capabilities will allow you to highlight and filter information related to guest virtual machines.
  • Improved multimedia support: improved support for various USB devices and multi-channel audio.
  • Flash drive emulation: The new NVMHCI storage emulation controller allows you to emulate NVME devices - flash drives - in guest systems.
  • Improved Linux integration: automatic deployment of modules when updating the Linux kernel and improved integration of the latest Linux distributions.
  • (English, official website)


For questions regarding cooperation, please contact us or via correspondence. Free help with infections and technical problems is provided on the forum; you must create a new topic in the appropriate section.

Any point on the map can be the center of the world. He is neither bad nor good. He just is. There is no virtue or dishonor here. There is only you alone with your conscience. And so on until the race is over, until the end comes, until we turn into the ghosts we seemed to ourselves. (c) film "Legend"

You lose more from indecision than from a wrong decision. (c) Carmela Soprano

Spoiler: Changelog

VirtualBox 5.1.24(released 2017-07-18)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

  • VMM: mask the VME CPUID capability on AMD Ryzen processors for now to make certain guests works, for example Windows XP
  • VMM: emulate more SSE2 instructions
  • VMM: properly clear the TF and AC flags when dispatching real-mode interrupts
  • GUI: fixes to make the mini-toolbar work with recent versions of KDE / Plasma (bug)
  • GUI: fixed a potential crash when a VM with multiple screens is running in full screen/ seamless mode and a host screen is removed, for example when connecting to the host via RDP
  • GUI: fixed initial size hints for guests which set intermediate sizes before responding (bug)
  • GUI: prevent stopped screen updates or black screen on reboot in a multi-screen setup under certain conditions
  • Audio: many improvements for Windows 10 guests (bugs , , , , , and others)
  • Storage: fixed possible crash when using Intels SPDK
  • API: use the correct file name of the VM machine state if the VM settings directory is renamed, for example during grouping / ungrouping a VM (bugs and )
  • API: return the correct error code if powering up a VM fails
  • API: video recording did not automatically start at VM start when enabled in the VM settings (bug)
  • API: when relocating a medium, check that the target path is fully qualified
  • EFI: fix for VMs with more than 3504MB RAM (bug)
  • Host-only adapter: correctly determine IPv4 netmasks on Windows hosts (bug)
  • NAT network: properly do the refcounting for starting / stopping the NAT / DHCP services if the NAT network is changed while the adapter network connection type is anything else but NAT network
  • VBoxManage: fixed controlvm videocapfile (bug)
  • Windows hosts: fixed crashes if driver verifier is enabled (bug , )
  • Linux hosts/guests: Linux 4.12 fixes (bugs, )
  • Linux hosts / guests: reduce the kernel stack consumption for Linux kernels with CONFIG_CPUMASK_OFFSTACK defined
  • Linux hosts/guests: fixes for kernel modules built with gcc-7 (bug)
  • Linux hosts/guests: Linux 4.13 fix (bug)
  • Linux hosts: don"t depend on net-tools on newer distributions as this package is deprecated in favor of iproute (bug)
  • Linux hosts: make 2D video acceleration available for older Linux distributions (5.1 regression; bug )
  • Linux Additions: fix for dynamic resizing with Oracle Linux 6 with UEK4
  • Linux Additions: make Fedora 25 and 26 Alpha work when 3D pass-through is enabled
  • Linux Additions: no longer recommend removing distribution- installed Additions if they are updated to our guidelines


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