VirtualBox 1.5.4

                 

InnoTek VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction; see "InnoTek" for more about our company.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows and Linux 32-bit hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while InnoTek ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria.

          

Changelog:

USB 2.0 support

PulseAudio backend

GUI: fixed accelerators in German translation

GUI: fixed registration dialog crashes

GUI: allow to enter unicode characters to the name of the registration dialog

GUI: pre-select attached media in the disk manager when opened from the VM settings dialog

GUI: remember the last active VM

GUI: don’t accept empty paths for serial/parallel ports in XML

GUI: fixed NumLock / CapsLock synchronizazion on Windows hosts

GUI: don’t start the kernel timer if no VM is active (Linux host)

VMM: improved compatibility with FreeBSD guests

VMM: properly restore CR4 after leaving VT-x mode

VMM: patch code and disassembler updates

VMM: with VT-x a pending interrupt could be cleared behind our back

VMM: workaround for missed cpuid patch (some Linux guests refuse to boot on multi-core CPUs)

VMM: fixed code for overriding CPUID values

API: don’t crash when trying to create a VM with a duplicate name

API: don’t crash when trying to access the settings of a VM when some other VMs are not accessible

API: fixed several memory leaks

ATA/IDE: fixed SuSE 9.1 CD read installer regression

Floppy: fixed inverted write protect flag

USB: virtualize an EHCI controller

USB: several minor fixes

Network: fixed MAC address check

Network: host interface fixes for Solaris guests

Network: guest networking stopped completely after taking a snapshot

Network: don’t crash if a network card is enabled but not attached

PXE: fix for PXE-EC8 error on soft reboot

NAT: update the DNS server IP address on every DNS packet sent by the guest

VGA: reset VRAM access handers after a fullscreen update

VGA: don’t overwrite guest’s VRAM when displaying a blank screen

ACPI: implemented the sleep button event

VRDP: fixed crash when querying VRDP properties

VRDP: netAddress fixes

VRDP: fixed the Pause/Break keys over VRDP

VRDP: sync NumLock / CapsLock sync over VRDP

VRDP: workaround for scrambled icons with a guest video mode of 16bpp

VRDP: reset modifer keys on RDP_INPUT_SYNCHRONIZE

VRDP: reset RDP updates after resize to prevent obsolete updates

Clipboard: Windows host/guest fixes

Clipboard: fixed a SEGFAULT on VM exit (Linux host)

Clipboard: fixed a buffer overflow (Linux host)

Shared Folders: fixed memory leaks

Linux installer: remove the old kernel module before compiling a new one

Linux host: compatibility fixes with Linux 2.6.24

Linux host: script fixes for ArchLinux

Linux host: load correct HAL library to determine DVD/floppy (libhal.so.1 not libhal.so)

Linux host: make sure the tun kernel module is loaded before initializing static TAP interfaces

Windows additions: fixed hang during HGCM communication

Windows additions: fixed delay when shutting down the guest

Linux additions: added sendfile support to allow HTTP servers to send files on shared folders

Linux additions: make additions work with Fedora 8 (SELinux policy added)

Linux additions: sometimes ARGB pointers were display incorrectly

Linux additions: several small script fixes

 

This is a very good alternative to VMware Workstation. Although comparatively it lacks a LOT of features, it's the best free virtual machine you can get.  User Manual (current development snapshot, updated 2007-06-06)