VirtualBox is the most popular cross-platform virtual machine application out there that are free for none commercial use. Last week Oracle just announced latest version of VirtualBox 5.0. A major release that are worth to upgrade for, some of the features includes:
- Paravirtualization Support for Windows and Linux Guests: Significantly improves guest OS performance by leveraging built-in virtualization support on operating systems such as Oracle Linux 7 and Microsoft Windows 7 and newer.
- Improved CPU Utilization: Exposes a broader set of CPU instructions to the guest OS, enabling applications to make use of the latest hardware instruction sets for maximum performance.
- Support of USB 3.0 Devices: Guest operating systems can directly recognize USB 3.0 devices and operate at full 3.0 speeds. The guest OS can be configured to support USB 1.1, 2.0, and 3.0.
- Bi-Directional Drag and Drop Support for Windows: On all host platforms, Windows, Linux and Oracle Solaris guests now support “drag and drop” of content between the host and the guest. The drag and drop feature transparently allows copying or opening of files, directories, and more.
- Disk Image Encryption: Data can be encrypted on virtual hard disk images transparently during runtime, using the industry standard AES algorithm with up to 256 bit data encryption keys (DEK). This helps ensure data is secure and encrypted at all times, whether the VM is sitting unused on a developer’s machine or server, or actively in use.
Windows 10 are Support Natively On VirtualBox
There are specific support added for the latest Windows 10. Now VirtualBox officially supports Windows 10 as one of the Windows version in the configuration page when you create a new virtual machine. If you already using VirtualBox to run Windows 10 prior VirtualBox 5.0 you now have the option to update any existing VM to Windows 10 option.
Some other notable features are the addition of Headless Start and Detachable Start options when power up a new Virtual Machine image. What it means is that,
VirtualBox now supports starting virtual machines in the background with a separate front-end process that can be closed while the virtual machine continues to work.
So when you select “Headless Start” you are starting the Virtual Machine without any UI process, it will just boot up the virtual machine without you seeing it. If you have a Linux Server that doesn’t require any UI components this is a great option to use as it saves resources for unnecessary UI drawings. “Detachable Start” means you can start a virtual machine so at any given time you can kill the UI process and keep the VM running as a headless state. Those are great new features, you can download the latest version here.