VirtualBox 4.2.6 Build 82870 A volte vorresti testare giochi, programmi o navigare su siti che non consideri affidabili, ma eviti di farlo perché temi di compromettere la stabilità del tuo sistema Windows. Altre volte ti capita di voler provare un nuovo sistema operativo, come Linux, ma ti fermi perché non sai come fare un dual boot o non vuoi formattare l'hard disk.
In questi casi la virtualizzazione può aiutarti, ed è qui che entra in gioco VirtualBox, un programma che ti permette di eseguire all'interno del tuo Windows (sistema host) un altro OS virtuale (sistema guest). In parole povere: due sistemi al prezzo di uno, ma slegati e indipendenti l'uno dall'altro.
Con VirtualBox potrai creare facilmente una macchina virtuale grazie a un wizard pratico e completamente in italiano. Puoi installare diversi sistemi operativi, da MS-DOS fino a Windows Vista, senza dimenticarci di Linux e altri OS minori. Per farlo avrai bisogno solo di un CD/DVD o di una ISO del sistema che vuoi montare. Dopo le operazioni di installazione sarai pronto per lavorare, e non avrai nemmeno la necessità di creare, per esempio, una nuova connessione a Internet. VirtualBox sarà in grado di configurare automaticamente il sistema virtuale con le impostazioni della macchina reale.
Per il resto, sarai libero di giocare con le numerose possibilità offerte da VirtualBox. Tra queste, vanno menzionate la possibilità di condividere cartelle col sistema host e l'opportunità di creare degli "snapshot" che ti consentiranno di realizzare dei punti di ripristino, per recuperare il sistema virtuale in caso di problemi. Quanto detto, però, è solo una piccola parte delle potenzialità di VirtualBox.
Di questo software ci colpisce soprattutto il minor consumo di memoria RAM rispetto a programmi come VMware. In confronto a quest'ultimo, però, VirtualBox paga l'importante assenza del drag and drop per trascinare i file dalla finestra guest al computer host e viceversa. Nonostante qualche pecca di gioventù, è un prodotto che si propone come una delle migliori soluzioni attualmente disponibili nell'ambito della virtualizzazione. Consigliato.
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VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.Some of the features of VirtualBox are:* Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don't have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.
* Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.
* Guest Additions for Windows and Linux. VirtualBox has special software that can be installed inside Windows and Linux virtual machines to improve performance and make integration much more seamless. Among the features provided by these Guest Additions are mouse pointer integration and arbitrary screen solutions (e.g. by resizing the guest window).
* Shared folders. Like many other virtualization solutions, for easy data exchange between hosts and guests, VirtualBox allows for declaring certain host directories as "shared folders", which can then be accessed from within virtual machines.
A number of extra features are available with the full VirtualBox release only (see the "Editions" page for details):* Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implements a virtual USB controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on the host.
* Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlike any other virtualization software, VirtualBox fully supports the standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual machine can act as an RDP server, allowing you to "run" the virtual machine remotely on some thin client that merely displays the RDP data.
* USB over RDP. With this unique feature, a virtual machine that acts as an RDP server can still access arbitrary USB devices that are connected on the RDP client. This way, a powerful server machine can virtualize a lot of thin clients that merely need to display RDP data and have USB devices plugged in.
Changes in VirtualBox 4.2.6 (released 2012-12-19):* VMM: don’t inject stale VT-x events to prevent crashes after VM reset (bug #11256)
* VMM: workaround for buggy BIOSes which enable MONITOR only for certain CPUs (bugs #9460, #10686)
* GUI: fixed trimming of anti-aliased text in details-view element headers (4.2.0 regression)
* GUI: fixed create-settings-file-alias functionality on Mac hosts (4.2.0 regression)
* GUI: fixed take-guest-screenshot functionality on Windows hosts (bug #11095)
* GUI: several minor fixes, including palette fixes (bug #11191)
* GUI: fixed Windows 2012 OS type (bug #11206)
* GUI: allow to terminate the VM even if VBoxSVC crashed
* API: fixed cancelling of snapshots, previously this could lead to inconsistent VM configs (bug #6877)
* API: fixed identifying disk images by UUID (bug #11209)
* 3D Support: several fixes
* VRDP: fixed occasional crash with external authentication (bug #11156)
* VGA: fix for double scan text modes
* USB: fixed invalid pending request count at the time of service of DEVICE POWER requests (Windows hosts only; bugs #10021, #11056)
* USB keyboard: Korean keyboard workaround (bug #11150)
* Storage: fixed hang with QCOW images and asynchronous I/O enabled
* Storage: fixed hang with newer VHD images (bug #11279)
* Storage: actually write the non-rotational flag to the VM settings (4.2.0 regression)
* Virtio-net: fixed the problem with network statistics counters in Session Information dialog (GUI)
* Metrics: introduced network rate and disk usage metrics
* Metrics: fixed a crash under certain conditions on Solaris hosts
* BIOS: fix for El Torito
* Shared Folders: if the host folder of a shared folder mapping does not exist, keep it active but mark it as invalid to prevent inconsitent saved states (bug #11147)
* VBoxManage: fixed converting disks from raw images
* VBoxManage: show snapshot description in the VM or snapshot information
* VBoxManage: make implicit opening of media consistent in all places dealing with media
* VBoxManage: the iSCSI initiator name was not stored in the settings file when doing storageattach (bug #11212)
* VBoxManage: metrics collect now properly handles ‘CPU/MHz’ and ‘Net/*/LinkSpeed’ metrics
* VBoxManage: changing the image UUID or parent UUID as part of storageattach works now in all safe cases
* VBoxManage: introduced storageattach –medium additions as a shortcut to mount the additions image (bug #11165)
* OVF: fixed importing OVF files cerated by recent VMware products (bug #10905)
* Linux hosts / Bridged Networking: fixed the problem with leaking connections in conntrack (bug #11178)
* Linux Additions: added support for ConsoleKit sessions in the vminfo service of VBoxService
* Linux Additions: don’t crash during remount under certain conditions (bug #11291)
* Linux/Solaris Additions: fixed guest memory metrics collection
* Solaris hosts: added a dependency to ensure that the user directories are reachable when starting VBox services
* Windows host installer: integrated user-contributed translations, thanks to all contributors!
* Windows Additions: fixed auto-logon installation for Windows 8
* Windows Additions: don’t fail if the shared folders host service is not available
* Windows Additions: fixed Guest Additions startup on Windows 2000 guests (bug #11253)
* Windows Additions: auto-resize fixes for Windows 8 guests
SO: Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7Size: 92MBLicenza: Open Source GPL
