Oracle - (Open Source)
VirtualBox is an easy and elegant solution for those who want to control a computer from another computer.
VirtualBox offers virtualize your operating system (OS) guests on a host machine. Called hypervisor, the application supports Windows OS X, Linux, Mac, Solaris, FreeBSD, etc.. as host, Mac OS X missing the call as a guest.
It also includes a remote access via HTTP protocol, convenient for demonstrations on a clean system. The ability to manage multiple states of the system is particularly interesting and its interface is very simple.
Virtualization solutions allow installing an operating system on a virtual machine using the resources of the host PC , thus enjoying very good performance. In the genre, several solutions are known for their ease of use, such as VMware Workstation , Parallels Desktop or Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1.
A virtual machine is a useful way to use two operating systems simultaneously and harmless to the host computer. There is the possibility to install Linux on a virtual machine on Windows and vice versa .
# The following items were fixed and/or added:
* VMM: V8086 mode fix for legacy DOS/Windows guests with EMM386 (3.2.8 regression)
* VMM: stability fix (bug #7342)
* VMM: fixed a Guru meditation related to large pages (bug #7300)
* VMM: fixed support for large pages on Linux hosts
* VMM: fixed a Guru meditation for large memory 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts with nested paging (bug #7544
* VMM: performance improvements for VMs with more than 2 GB RAM (bug #6928)
* GUI: fixed host key handling if the host key is set to Left Alt (Linux/Solaris hosts only; 3.2.0 regression; bug #6758)
* GUI: the VM can be minimized from the mini toolbar (bug #4952)
* GUI: handle Ctrl+Break properly on X11 hosts (3.2.0 regression; bug #6122)
* GUI: fixed the case where the user aborted the media selector for selecting the boot hard disk from the VM wizard
* GUI: added a check for Linux kernels 2.6.36 or later which are known to have the asynchronous I/O bug on ext4 / xfs file systems fixed (Linux hosts only)
* OpenSolaris guests: use SATA controller by default
* Storage: fixed I/O errors in the guest after compacting VDI images (3.2.6 regression; bug #7294)
* Storage: automatically repair base disk images with non-zero parent UUID which made them inaccessible (bug #7289)
* Storage: fixed corrupted images if a merge operation was canceled
* IDE: added ATAPI passthrough support for audio CDs (bug #3494)
* SATA: fixed a potential hang during boot of recent Solaris guests
* SATA: handle out of disk space and similar conditions better
* iSCSI: fixed sporadic hangs when closing the connection
* VGA: fixed missing redraw with multiple screens under certain circumstances (bug #7291)
* VGA: serveral small fixes for legacy VGA graphics modes
* Bridged networking: fixed occasional host freeze during VM shutdown (Linux hosts only)
* NAT: don't check for the existence of the TFTP prefix when delivering a file via bootp (bug #7384)
* NAT: fixed resolving of names at the host resolver (bug #7138)
* NAT: under rare conditions the NAT engine consumed 100% CPU load (non-Windows hosts only)
* VRDP: fixed memory leak under certain circumstances (bug #5966)
* VRDP: fixed missing redraws with Windows guests under certain circumstances
* USB: properly discard blocking outstanding bulk URBs, fixes some printers
* USB: Blackberry fix (bug #6465)
* VBoxHeadless: fixed event queue processing problems which led to hangs if the VM could not be started successfully
* VBoxManage: don't crash if parameters with invalid characters are passed (bug #7388)
* VBoxManage: clonehd: fixed a bug where the command aborted with an error message under rare circumstances
* VBoxManage: metrics: made it work for directly started VMs again (3.2.8 regression; bug #7482)
* 3D support: report GLX_ARB_get_proc_address as supported extension
* 3D support: guest application stack corruption when using glGetVertexAttrib[ifd]v (bug #7395)
* 3D support: fixed broken 3D support when switching to fullscreen/seamless modes (bug #7314)
* 3D support: fixed 32bit OpenGL apps under 64bit Windows XP/Vista (bug #7066)
* OVF: fixed bug when exporting a VM with multiple attached disks (bug #7366)
* OVF: fixed slow export for certain filesystems (bug #3719)
* OVF: disabled manifest (.mf file) support; manifests are no longer verified on import nor written on export
* Shared clipboard/Windows: improved the reliability of the shared clipboard on Windows hosts and guest (partial fix to bug #5266)
* Shared Folders: don't show an empty directory if filenames with an invalid encoding exist on the host (bug #7349)
* Shared Folders: return the proper error code when trying to list files for a non-existing wildcard (bug #7004)
* Audio: fixed guest memory corruption when capturing from the NULL audio backend (bug #6911)
* Audio: improved playback quality (less choppy) (bug #6816)
* Web service: avoid unnecessary creation of idle threads
* Additions: fixed bug in the guest execution feature when passing more than one environment variable
* Additions: refresh all guest properties written by VBoxService after the VM was restored from a saved state
* Additions: fixed a division by zero crash of VBoxService under certain circumstances
* Additions: immediately resynchronize the guest time with the host time after the VM was restored from a saved state (bug #4018)
* Additions/Windows: fixed LsaEnumerate error when enumerating logged in users
* Additions/X.Org: support X.Org Server 1.9 (bug #7306)
* Additions/X.Org: don't crash VBoxClient during reboot
* Solaris hosts: fixed host DVD drive enumeration on Solaris 10
* Solaris hosts: added a custom core dumper to procure more data in the event of a VM crash
* Solaris guests: fixed user idle detection
* Solaris guests: fixed a possible panic in Shared Folders when using the wrong user or group IDs (bug #7295)
* Solaris guests: fixed Shared Folders from truncating files to 2GB on 32-bit guests (bug #7324)
* Windows hosts: fixed a BSOD under certain circumstances in VBoxNetFlt.sys (bug #7448)
* Linux hosts/guests: Linux 2.6.36 fixes
* Linux hosts/guests: DKMS fixes (bug #5817)
* Mac OS X hosts: fixed missing dock menu entries (bug #7392)