- Reorganization of VirtualBox into a base package and Extension Packs
- New settings/disk file layout for VM portability
- Major rework of the GUI (now called “VirtualBox Manager”):
– Redesigned user interface with guest window preview (also for screenshots)
– New display mode with downscaled guest display
– Support for creating and starting .vbox desktop shortcuts
– The VM list is now sortable
– Machines can now be deleted easily without a trace including snapshots and saved states, and optionally including attached disk images (bug #5511; also, VBoxManage unregistervm --delete can do the same now)
- Open Virtualization Format Archive (OVA) support;Importing and exporting virtual machines.
- VMM: support more than 1.5/2 GB guest RAM on 32-bit hosts
- New virtual hardware:
– Intel ICH9 chipset with three PCI buses, PCI Express and Message Signaled Interrupts(MSI)
– Intel HD Audio, for better support of modern guest operating systems (e.g. 64-bitWindows).
- Resource control: added support for limiting a VM’s CPU time and IO bandwidth.
- Storage: support asynchronous I/O for iSCSI, VMDK, VHD and Parallels images
- Storage: support for resizing VDI and VHD images
- Guest Additions: support for copying files into the guest file system; theWindows Additions can now automatically update themselves (requires installed Windows Guest Additions 4.0 or later)
- Language bindings: uniform Java bindings for both local (COM/XPCOM) and remote (SOAP) invocation APIs
- Guest Additions: support for multiple virtual screens in Linux and Solaris guests using X.Org server 1.3 and later.
- In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:
- VMM: Enable large page support by default on 64-bit hosts (applies to nested paging only)
- VMM: fixed guru meditation when running Minix (VT-x only;)
- GUI: built-in creation of desktop file shortcuts to start VMs on double click
- GUI: add configuration dialog for port forwarding in NAT mode
- GUI: show the guest window content on save and restore
- GUI: certain GUI warnings don’t stop the VM output anymore
- 3D support: allow use of CR_SYSTEM_GL_PATH again
- 3D support: fixed various clipping/visibility issues
- 3D support: guest application stack corruption when using glGetVertexAttrib[ifd]v
- 3D support: fixed XPDM Windows Explorer crashes on Windows Vista/Win7 guests
- 3D support: fixed Direct3D 8/9 support on WindowsXP guests
- 2D Video acceleration: multimonitor support
- VRDP: fixed rare crash in multimonitor configuration
- VRDP: support for upstream audio
- Display: fixed occasional guest resize crash
- NAT: port forwarding rules can be applied at runtime
- SATA: allow to attach CD/DVD-ROM drives including passthrough
- Floppy: support readonly image files, taking this as the criteria for making the medium
- readonly
- Audio: the DirectSound backend now allows VMs to be audible when another DirectSound application is active, including another VM (bug #5578)
- EFI: support for SATA disks and CDROMs
- BIOS: reduce the stack usage of the VESA BIOS function #4F01 (Quake fix)
- OVF/OVA: significant performance improvements during export and import
- OVF/OVA: creation of the manifest file on export is optional now
- OVF/OVA: allow overwriting the target disk format on import
- OVF/OVA: fixed export of VMs with iSCSI disks
- Storage: Apple DMG image support for the virtual CD/DVD
- Linux host USB support: introduced a less invasive way of accessing raw USB devices
- Guest Additions: Shared Folders now can be marked as being auto-mounted on Windows,Linux and Solaris guests
- Linux Additions: Shared Folders now support symbolic links
- Linux Additions: combined 32-bit and 64-bit additions into one file
- Windows Additions: automatic logon on Windows Vista/Windows 7 is now able to handle
- renamed user accounts; added various bugfixes