VirtualBox 4 Beta Released

December 17, 2010

VirtualBox 4 Beta 4 available. Changelog below.

   Information

This is the fourth beta of the upcoming 4.0 release. The following items were added/fixed since VirtualBox 4.0.0 Beta 3:

• Audio: fixed memory corruption under certain circumstances
• 3D support: fixed OpenGL support for Windows 2000 guests
• Settings: modifying VM session could lose disk attachments (4.0 Beta 3 regression)
• OVA: fixed crash during import
• GUI: better OS type string matching
• GUI: fixed redraw problem on X11 guests with multiple monitors attached (Mac OS X hosts only)
• GUI: remember last directory in file dialogs
• Settings: fixed .vbox file format portability issue with snapshots (backslashes)
• ExtPacks: fixed installation on certain Linux hosts (e.g. openSUSE)
• ExtPacks: require sudo for installation on Linux and Solaris hosts
• Storage: fixed possible crash during suspend
• Storage: fixed raw disk access on OS X
• Storage: lower the CPU usage for low disk I/O bandwidth limits
• Storage: added multi-attachment image mode for shared disk clusters
• Storage: fixed SATA activity LED handling
• 2D: fixed seamless mode when 2D is on for Mac hosts
• Additions: fixed incompatibility with SLED 11

VirtualBox 4.0.0 Beta 4

whs said:

Kari, I see you run Snow Leopard in vBox. How well does that run (before I spend $29 + tax, I would like to know - LOL).

2 words. Abysmally slow

jimbo45 said:

it's the first time that I've even contemplated moving away from vmware --- they are going "too corporate" these days so individual / small company users are just left behind.

How so...the vmware player 3.x product is great for home users and 100% free. I'm not even close to giving up on vmware player 3.x....but will of course look at vbox. I've got tons of ESX and ESXi at work...so sticking with VMware is a no brainer for me.

pparks1 said:

whs said:

Kari, I see you run Snow Leopard in vBox. How well does that run (before I spend $29 + tax, I would like to know - LOL).

2 words. Abysmally slow

That convo was moved here - New to Virtualization

I was suspicious when Oracle took over VirtualBox. But this look good now, it seems they really are developing it.

Version 4 is now final, officially released today December 22th.

Changelog - VirtualBox

Kari

Can you install version 4 over the current version and does it keep the installation running - or does one have to restart from square 1.

You can install it on top of an older version, replacing it. All virtual machines are kept and can be directly launched. Guest Additions should then be updated inside every vm you have.

Don't forget to download and install VBox 4 extension pack, too.

I still have some problems to get Linux Guest Additions v.4 to work, as well as Solaris, but I'll bet it's a "personal problem" rather than a bug. Testing as we speak, have now restored Linux VM's from backup a couple of times, after unsuccessful GA upgrade, trying to find a solution.

Thanks kari. I guess I wait for you "total success" report.

I do not know or understand why, but finally I got also the problematic Linux and Unix distros to accept Guest Additions. All except Novell SUSE Enterprise; it shows GA as installed but integration works only partly, for instance no seamless mode and mouse integration is not working as it should, plus resolution can not be changed by resizing Windows Explorer window.

But other Linux vm's (Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora) all working well, as well as all Windows vm's. In screenshot below only 25% of host CPU resources used when Solaris Unix running on left display in seamless mode and Ubuntu in windowed mode.

Kari