Whether you are a professional software tester or you simply like to evaluate a large array of apps before choosing the one that best suits your necessities, you probably know that a virtualized environment can save you a lot of trouble: you can install any app without worrying it might mess up your previous settings and you can get rid of it just as easily. And if you want to test the same app on several operating systems, Oracle VM VirtualBox can be quite helpful.
The application comes with an intuitive interface that allows users to add a new virtual machine and choose the OS they prefer (be it Solaris, Windows, Linux, BSD or Mac OS X), as well as the exact version. The next steps include assigning the new virtual machine the amount of RAM and HDD space it will take, as well as the type of storage, dynamic or fixed, it is to occupy on the PC.
In order to launch any virtualized OS, you simply need to press the Start button - once it is running, you can pause, reset or close your virtual machine, or even clone it or create a dedicated desktop shortcut to help you open it whenever you need it.
If you are an expert user, you can also benefit from specialized functions of Oracle VM VirtualBox, such as shared folders, seamless windows, 3D virtualization, multigeneration branched snapshots, remote machine display and modularity.
Oracle VM VirtualBox also features versatile hardware support, so that you can create virtual machines that have up multiple virtual CPUs (regardless of how many cores you have physically on your PC), that recognize USB devices or ones that come with multiscreen resolutions, integrated iSCSI support and PXE network boot.
To wrap it up, it is safe to say that Oracle VM VirtualBox can come in handy to both novices and experts: while the former can get their virtual machines up and running in no time, the latter can customize their virtualized environment to the tiniest details.
What's New in This Release:
· VMM: fixed several regressions; fixed accessing certain MSRs (Intel and AMD)
· VMM: fixed 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts including fixes for host crashes under certain conditions.
· VMM: allow to use VT-x in SMX mode
· GUI: more settings validation fixes
· GUI: medium enumeration overhaul to speed up opening the settings dialog
· GUI: fixed crashes under certain conditions on X11 hosts
· Main: extension pack framework can now support loading HGCM modules, contributed by Jeff Westphal
· Settings: the exclusive HW virtualization setting is now global, not per-VM as before
· NAT: fixed port-forwarding
· NAT: binding IPv4 connectivity to specified interface (global extradata "NAT//SourceIp4" ipv4)
· NAT: DHCP reports list of DNS servers (w/o loopback mapping)
· USB: detect USB2 devices on USB3 ports (Windows hosts only)
· OVF: fixed import regression with double OHCI controller
· 3D: fixed 3D-related crashes and Windows 8.1 rendering issues on OSX hosts
· 3D: fixed Ubuntu 13.04 3D desktop rendering issues
· Windows Ad...