VirtualBox 6.0.6 for PC Windows

This is a maintenance release. The following items were ?xed and/or added:

* Host and guest clipboard: ?xed a number of issues affecting hosts and guests running the X window system.
* Guest Additions: make sure the virtual mouse autodetection works on ?rst reboot after installing the Additions on X.Org server 1.5 and later.
* Guest Additions: properly report process identity number of running services
* Guest Additions: clean up properly if the X Window server terminates
* Linux Additions: ?xed installation path for OpenGL libraries in some 64-bit guests (bug #3693)
* Solaris Additions: ?xed installation to work when X.Org is not installed on the guest
* Solaris Additions: ?xed a bug that could panic the guest when unmounting a busy shared folder
* Windows Additions: ?xed mouse pointer integration of some Windows guests (2.2.0 regression, bug #3734)
* Windows Additions: ?xed installation on Windows Server 2008 Core (bug #2628)
* Main: do not try to use older versions of D-Bus (Linux hosts only, bug #3732)
* VMM: ?xed out-of-memory conditions on Windows hosts (bug #3657)
* VMM: ?xed occasional hangs when attaching USB devices during VM startup (2.2.0 regression; bugs #3787)
* VMM: ?xed guru meditation related to memory management (software virtualization only)
* Virtual disks: ?x possible data corruption when writing to diff images, incorrect detection of redundant writes
* GUI: reworked network settings dialog
* GUI: properly show the detailed settings dialog of NAT networks (bug #3702)
* GUI: HostKey could not be changed (2.2.0 regression, bug #3689)
* GUI: ?xed memory text?eld size (Windows hosts only; bug #3679)
* GUI: ?xed crash when selecting a shared folder path (Windows hosts only; bugs #3694, #3751, #3756)
* VBoxManage modifyhd --compact: implemented again for VDI ?les, and now supports relative paths (bug #2180, #2833)
* VBoxManage snapshot discard: made it work again (2.1.0 regression; bug #3714)
* NAT: on some Windows host, the guest didn’t receive a DHCP lease (bug #3655)
* NAT: ?xed release assertion during poll() (bug #3667)
* Clipboard: ?xed random crahes (X11 hosts only, bug #3723)
* Shared Folders: ?xed incorrect permissions for Solaris guests
* Shared Folders: ?xed wrong ?le sizes with Solaris guests
* CBindings: ?xed possible memory leak while releasing the IVirtualBox and ISession Objects
* Solaris hosts: ?xed host-only network interface incompatibility with nwam/dhcpagent (bug #3754)
* Windows installer: fixed several install and uninstall issues (bugs #3659, #3686, #1730, #3711, #3373, #3382, #3701, #3685, #3710)
* Mac OS X hosts: preliminary support for Snow Leopard

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

* OVF (Open Virtualization Format) appliance import and export (see chapter 3.8, Importing and exporting virtual machines, User Manual page 55)
* Host-only networking mode (see chapter 6.7, Host-only networking, User Manual page 88)
* Hypervisor optimizations with signi?cant performance gains for high context switching rates
* Raised the memory limit for VMs on 64-bit hosts to 16GB
* VT-x/AMD-V are enabled by default for newly created virtual machines
* USB (OHCI & EHCI) is enabled by default for newly created virtual machines (Qt GUI only)
* Experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts
* Shared folders for Solaris and OpenSolaris guests
* OpenGL 3D acceleration for Linux and Solaris guests (see chapter 4.8, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL), User Manual page 70)
* Added C API in addition to C++, Java, Python and Web Services

In addition, the following items were ?xed and/or added:

* VMM: FreeBSD guest related ?x for V86 ?ags (bug #2342)
* VMM: ?xed guru meditation when booting an AsteriskNow Linux VM (bug #2342)
* VMM: ?xed PGMPOOLKIND_FREE guru meditation (bugs #3356, #3431)
* VMM: ?xed Windows XP boot hang (guest PAE + nested paging only)
* VMM: allow mixing of VT-x/AMD-V and software virtualization
* VMM: ?xed extremely slow safe mode booting in e.g. Windows 2008 (VT-x/AMD-V only)
* VMM: signi?cant speedup of certain GRUB boot loaders (e.g. Solaris) (VT-x/AMD-V only)
* VMM: real-mode IOPL ?x for DOS guests (VT-x only)
* VMM: ?xed VT-x detection with certain BIOSes that enable VT-x, but don’t set the lock bit in MSR_IA32_FEATURE_CONTROL
* VMM: ?xed hibernation issues on Windows XP hosts (VT-x only; bug #1794)
* VMM: properly emulate RDMSR from the TSC MSR, should ?x some NetBSD guests
* VMM: emulate RDPMC; ?xes Windows guests crashes when using the Kaspersky virus scanner (bug #1778)
* NAT: ?xed truncated downloads (FTP) (bug #3257)
* NAT: blocked UDP packets caused a crash (bug #3426)
* NAT: allow to con?gure the next server and the boot ?le via VBoxManage (bug #2759)
* IDE: ?xed hard disk upgrade from XML-1.2 settings (bug #1518)
* Hard disk: support more VMDK ?le variants (including ?xed-size ESX server images)
* Hard disks: refuse to start the VM if a disk image is not writable
* USB: further reduced host CPU utilization for OHCI and EHCI; the “VBoxInternal/Devices/usb-ohci/0/Con?g/FrameRate” CFG key is no longer necessary and no longer supported
* USB: ?xed BSOD on the host with certain USB devices (Windows hosts only; bug #1654)
* E1000: properly handle cable disconnects (bug #3421)
* VRDP: ?xed hangs when VRDP server is enabled or disabled in runtime
* Shared folders: respect umask settings on Linux, OSX and Solaris hosts when creating ?les
* X11 guests: prevented setting the locale in vboxmouse, as this caused problems with Turkish locales (bug #3563)
* X11 guests: show the guest mouse pointer at the right position if the virtual desktop is larger than the guest resolution (bug #2306)
* Linux additions: ?xed typo when detecting Xorg 1.6 (bug #3555)
* Solaris guests: added xpg4/xcu4 dependency to the guest additions installer (bug #3524)
* Windows guests: bind the VBoxMouse.sys ?lter driver to the correct guest pointing device (bug #1324)
* Windows hosts: ?xed BSOD when starting a VM with enabled host interface (bug #3414)
* Linux hosts: do proper reference counting to prevent unloading the vboxnet?t module as long as this code is in use (bug #3104)
* Linux hosts: do not leave zombies of VBoxSysInfo.sh (bug #3586)
* Linux installers: ?xes for Slackware, Arch Linux and Linux from Scratch systems
* Windows installers: combined installer executable which contains both (32- and 64-bit) architectures.
* VBoxManage: less cryptic command-line error messages
* VBoxManage list vms commands now default to compact format
* VBoxManage controlvm dvdattach did not work if the image was attached before
* VBoxManage: allow creation of all supported disk image variants
* VBoxManage showvminfo: don’t spam the release log if the additions don’t support statistics information (bug #3457)
* VBoxManage: big command line processing cleanup, the legacy single-dash options are deprecated and will be removed in the next major release, so switch to the new options now
* Hard disks: improved immutable disk support to auto-reset diff ?le at VM startup (related to bug #2772)
* GUI: enable the audio adapter by default for new VMs
* GUI: warn if VT-x/AMD-V is not operational when starting a 64-bit guest
* GUI: deactivate 64-bit guest support when the host CPU does not support VT-x/AMD-V
* GUI: removed ?oppy icon from the status bar
* GUI: show build revision in about dialog
* GUI: ?xed sticky status bar text
* GUI: improved error dialogs
* GUI: fail with an appropriate error message when trying to boot a read-only disk image (bug #1745)
* GUI/Mac OS X: ?xed disabled close button
* GUI/Windows: re-enabled support for copy and paste (Windows hosts 2.0 regression; bug #2065)
* 3D support: added OpenGL select/feedback support (bug #2920)
* 3D support: close OpenGL subsystem for terminated guest applications (bug #3243)
* 3D support: ?xed VM hangs when starting guests with 3D acceleration enabled (bug #3437)
* PXE: ?xed boot hangs when hardware virtualization is used (bug #2536)
* LsiLogic: ?xed problems with Solaris guests
* Main API: close machine settings XML ?le when unregistering machine (bug #3548)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* Windows hosts: fixed host crashes/hangs on certain 32 bits Windows systems when running Linux guests (bugs #1606, #2269, #2763)
* Windows hosts: fixed network component BSOD issue (bugs #3168, #2916)
* Windows hosts: fixed installation issues (bugs #2517, #1730, #3130)
* Linux hosts: fixed occasional kernel oopses (bug #2556)
* Linux hosts: fixed module dependency for shipped modules (bug #3115)
* Linux hosts: moved the udev rules for USB forward so that they don’t override existing system rules (bug #3143)
* Linux hosts: fixed the issue with guest not being able to communicate with each other when attached via TAP interfaces (bug #3215)
* Linux hosts: give up probing for USB gracefully if dbus or hal are not available (bug #3136)
* Linux hosts: fixed warnings in installer when SELinux was disabled (bug #3098)
* Linux hosts: VirtualBox sometimes failed to start if it had been started using sudo previously (bug #3270)
* Solaris hosts: fixed high CPU load while running many guests in parallel
* Solaris hosts: fixed inability to start more than 128 VMs
* VMM: fixed performance regression for Windows guests (bug #3172)
* VMM: ignore CPU stepping when restoring a saved state/snapshot
* REM: fixed inability to use gdb to debug programs in Linux guests with software virtualization (bug #3245)
* GUI: fixed dead key handling on Solaris hosts (bug #3256)
* GUI: in the shutdown dialog, disable the action send the shutdown signal if the guest is currently not using ACPI
* GUI: suppress additional key release events sent by X11 hosts when keys are auto-repeated (bug #1296)
* API: restore case insensitive OS type name lookup (bug #3087)
* VBoxHeadless: really don’t start X11 services (clipboard service, 3D acceleration; Solaris & Darwin hosts only; bug #3199)
* NAT: fixed occasional crashes when the guest is doing traceroute (non-Windows hosts; bug #3200)
* NAT: fixed crashes under high load (bug #3110)
* NAT: fixed truncated downloads (Windows hosts only, bug #3257)
* NAT: don’t intercept TFTP packages with a destination address different from the builtin TFTP server (bug #3112)
* USB: several fixes for USB passthrough on Linux hosts
* USB: reduced host CPU utilization if EHCI is active
* VRDP: fixed VRDP server black screen after a client reconnect (bug #1989)
* VRDP: modified rdesktop client (rdesktop-vrdp) now uses NumLock state synchronization (bug #3253)
* LsiLogic: make FreeBSD guests work (bug #3174)
* ATA: fixed deadlock when pausing VM due to problems with the virtual disk (e.g. disk full, iSCSI target unavailable)
* iSCSI: fixed possible crash when pausing the VM
* 3D support: added missing GL_MAX_TEXTURE_COORDS_ARB (bug #3246)
* Windows Additions: fixed ERROR (e0000101) error during installation (bug #1923)
* Windows Additions: fixed Windows Explorer hang when browsing shared folders with 64 bit guests (bug #2225)
* Windows Additions: fixed guest screen distortions during a video mode change
* Windows Additions: fixed the Network drive not connected message for mapped shared folders drives after the guest startup (bug #3157)
* Linux Additions: fixed occasional file corruption when writing files in O_APPEND mode to a shared folder (bug #2844)
* Linux Additions: the mouse driver was not properly set up on X.Org release candidates (bug #3212)
* Linux Additions: fixed installer to work with openSUSE 11.1 (bug #3213)
* Linux Additions: disable dynamic resizing if the X server is configured for fixed resolutions
* Linux/Solaris Additions: handle virtual resolutions properly which are larger than the actual guest resolution (bug #3096)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* USB: improved support for recent Linux hosts
* VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests on non-PAE hosts (AMD-V)
* VMM: fixed guru meditation on Mac OS X hosts when using VT-x
* VMM: allow running up to 1023 VMs on 64-bit hosts (used to be 127)
* VMM: several FreeBSD guest related fixes (bugs #2342, #2341, #2761)
* VMM: fixed guru meditation when installing Suse Enterprise Server 10U2 (VT-x only; bug #3039)
* VMM: fixed guru meditation when booting Novell Netware 4.11 (VT-x only; bug #2898)
* VMM: fixed VERR_ADDRESS_TOO_BIG error on some Mac OS X systems when starting a VM
* VMM: clear MSR_K6_EFER_SVME after probing for AMD-V (bug #3058)
* VMM: fixed guru meditation during Windows 7 boot with more than 2 GB guest RAM (VT-x, nested paging only)
* VMM: fixed hang during OS/2 MCP2 boot (AMD-V and VT-x only)
* VMM: fixed loop during OpenBSD 4.0 boot (VT-x only)
* VMM: fixed random crashes related to FPU/XMM with 64 bits guests on 32 bits hosts
* VMM: fixed occasional XMM state corruption with 64 bits guests
* VMM: speed improvements for real mode and protected mode without paging (software virtualization only)
* GUI: raised the RAM limit for new VMs to 75% of the host memory
* GUI: added Windows 7 as operating system type
* VBoxSDL: fixed -fixed fixedmode parameter (bug #3067)

* Clipboard: stability fixes (Linux and Solaris hosts only, bug #2675 and #3003)
* 3D support: fixed VM crashes for certain guest applications (bugs #2781, #2797, #2972, #3089)
* LsiLogic: improved support for Windows guests (still experimental)
* VGA: fixed a 2.1.0 regression where guest screen resize events were not properly handled (bug #2783)
* VGA: significant performance improvements when using VT-x/AMD-V on Mac OS X hosts
* VGA: better handling for VRAM offset changes (fixes GRUB2 and Dos DOOM display issues)
* VGA: custom VESA modes with invalid widths are now rounded up to correct ones (bug #2895)
* IDE: fixed ATAPI passthrough support (Linux hosts only; bug #2795)
* Networking: fixed kernel panics due to NULL pointer dereference in Linux kernels < 2.6.20 (Linux hosts only; bug #2827)
* Networking: fixed intermittend BSODs when using the new host interface (Windows hosts only; bugs #2832, #2937, #2929)
* Networking: fixed several issues with displaying hostif NICs in the GUI (Windows hosts only; bugs 2814, #2842)
* Networking: fixed the issue with displaying hostif NICs without assigned IP addresses (Linux hosts only; bug #2780)
* Networking: fixed the issue with sent packets coming back to internal network when using hostif (Linux hosts only; bug #3056).
* NAT: fixed port forwarding (Windows hosts only; bug #2808)
* NAT: fixed booting from the builtin TFTP server (bug #1959)
* NAT: fixed occasional crashes (bug #2709)
* SATA: vendor product data (VPD) is now configurable
* SATA: raw disk partitions were not recognized (2.1.0 regression, Windows host only, bug #2778)
* SATA: fixed timeouts in the guest when using raw VMDK files (Linux host only, bug #2796)
* SATA: huge speed up during certain I/O operations like formatting a drive
* SATA/IDE: fixed possible crash/errors during VM shutdown
* VRDP: fixed loading of libpam.so.1 from the host (Solaris hosts only)
* VRDP: fixed RDP client disconnects
* VRDP: fixed VRDP server misbehavior after a broken client connection
* VBoxManage showvminfo: fixed assertion for running VMs (bug #2773)

* VBoxManage convertfromraw: added parameter checking and made it default to creating VDI files; fixed and documented format parameter (bug #2776)
* VBoxManage clonehd: fixed garbled output image when creating VDI files (bug #2813)
* VBoxManage guestproperty: fixed property enumeration (incorrect parameters/exception)
* VHD: fixed error when attaching certain container files (bug #2768)
* Solaris hosts: added support for serial ports (bug #1849)
* Solaris hosts: fix for Japanese keyboards (bug #2847)
* Solaris hosts: 32-bit and 64-bit versions now available as a single, unified package
* Linux hosts: don’t depend on libcap1 anymore (bug #2859)
* Linux hosts: compile fixes for 2.6.29-rc1
* Linux hosts: don’t drop any capability if the VM was started by root (2.1.0 regression)
* Mac OS X hosts: save the state of running or paused VMs when the host machine’s battery reaches critical level
* Mac OS X hosts: improved window resizing of the VM window
* Mac OS X hosts: added GUI option to disable the dock icon realtime preview in the GUI to decrease the host CPU load when the guest is doing 3D
* Mac OS X hosts: polished realtime preview dock icon
* Windows Additions: fixed guest property and logging OS type detection for Windows 2008 and Windows 7 Beta
* Windows Additions: added support for Windows 7 Beta (bugs #2995, #3015)
* Windows Additions: fixed Windows 2000 guest freeze when accessing files on shared folders (bug #2764)
* Windows Additions: fixed Ctrl-Alt-Del handling when using VBoxGINA
* Windows Additions Installer: Added /extract switch to only extract (not install) the files to a directory (can be specified with /D=path)
* Linux installer and Additions: added support for the Linux From Scratch distribution (bug #1587) and recent Gentoo versions (bug #2938)
* Additions: added experimental support for X.Org Server 1.6 RC on Linux guests
* Linux Additions: fixed bug which prevented to properly set fmode on mapped shared folders (bug #1776)
* Linux Additions: fixed appending of files on shared folders (bug #1612)
* Linux Additions: ignore noauto option when mounting a shared folder (bug #2498)
* Linux Additions: fixed a driver issue preventing X11 from compiling keymaps (bug #2793 and #2905)
* X11 Additions: workaround in the mouse driver for a server crash when the driver is loaded manually (bug #2397)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

* Support for hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V) on Mac OS X hosts
* Support for 64-bit guests on 32-bit host operating systems (experimental; see user manual, chapter 1.6, 64-bit guests, page 16)
* Added support for Intel Nehalem virtualization enhancements (EPT and VPID; see user manual, chapter 1.2, Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V), page 10))
* Experimental 3D acceleration via OpenGL (see user manual, chapter 4.8, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL), page 66)
* Experimental LsiLogic and BusLogic SCSI controllers (see user manual, chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, page 70)
* Full VMDK/VHD support including snapshots (see user manual, chapter 5.2, Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD), page 72)
* New NAT engine with significantly better performance, reliability and ICMP echo (ping) support (bugs #1046, #2438, #2223, #1247)
* New Host Interface Networking implementations for Windows and Linux hosts with easier setup (replaces TUN/TAP on Linux and manual bridging on Windows)

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

* VMM: significant performance improvements for VT-x (real mode execution)
* VMM: support for hardware breakpoints (VT-x and AMD-V only; bug #477)
* VMM: VGA performance improvements for VT-x and AMD-V
* VMM: Solaris and OpenSolaris guest performance improvements for AMD-V (Barcelona family CPUs only)
* VMM: fixed guru meditation while running the Dr. Web virus scanner (software virtualization only; bug #1439)
* VMM: deactivate VT-x and AMD-V when the host machine goes into suspend mode; reactivate when the host machine resumes (Windows, Mac OS X & Linux hosts; bug #1660)
* VMM: fixed guest hangs when restoring VT-x or AMD-V saved states/snapshots
* VMM: fixed guru meditation when executing a one byte debug instruction (VT-x only; bug #2617)
* VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests on non-PAE hosts (VT-x)
* VMM: disallow mixing of software and hardware virtualization execution in general (bug #2404)
* VMM: fixed black screen when booting OS/2 1.x (AMD-V only)
* GUI: pause running VMs when the host machine goes into suspend mode (Windows & Mac OS X hosts)
* GUI: resume previously paused VMs when the host machine resumes after suspend (Windows & Mac OS X hosts)
* GUI: save the state of running or paused VMs when the host machine’s battery reaches critical level (Windows hosts)
* GUI: properly restore the position of the selector window when running on the compiz window manager
* GUI: properly restore the VM in seamless mode (2.0 regression)
* GUI: warn user about non optimal memory settings
* GUI: structure operating system list according to family and version for improved usability
* GUI: predefined settings for QNX guests
* IDE: improved ATAPI passthrough support
* Networking: added support for up to 8 Ethernet adapters per VM
* Networking: fixed issue where a VM could lose connectivity after a reboot
* iSCSI: allow snapshot/diff creation using local VDI file
* iSCSI: improved interoperability with iSCSI targets
* Graphics: fixed handling of a guest video memory which is not a power of two (bug #2724)
* VBoxManage: fixed bug which prevented setting up the serial port for direct device access.
* VBoxManage: added support for VMDK and VHD image creation
* VBoxManage: added support for image conversion (VDI/VMDK/VHD/RAW)
* Solaris hosts: added IPv6 support between host and guest when using host interface networking
* Mac OS X hosts: added ACPI host power status reporting
* API: redesigned storage model with better generalization
* API: allow attaching a hard disk to more than one VM at a time
* API: added methods to return network configuration information of the host system
* Shared Folders: performance and stability fixes for Windows guests (Microsoft Office Applications)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* VMM: fixed Guru meditation when running 64 bits Windows guests (bug #2220)
* VMM: fixed Solaris 10U6 boot hangs (VT-x and AMD-V) bug #2565)
* VMM: fixed Solaris 10U6 reboot hangs (AMD-V only; bug #2565)
* GUI: the host key was sometimes not properly displayed (Windows hosts only, bug #1996)
* GUI: the keyboard focus was lost after minimizing and restoring the VM window via the Windows taskbar (bugs #784)
* VBoxManage: properly show SATA disks when showing the VM information (bug #2624)
* SATA: fixed access if the buffer size is not sector-aligned (bug #2024)
* SATA: improved performance
* SATA: fixed snapshot function with ports>1 (bug #2510)
* E1000: fixed crash under rare circumstances
* USB: fixed support for iPhone and Nokia devices (Linux host: bugs #470 & #491)
* Windows host installer: added proper handling of open VirtualBox applications when updating the installation
* Windows host installer: fixed default installation directory on 64-bit on new installations (bug 2501)
* Windows host installer: added proper handling of open VirtualBox applications when updating the installation
* Linux/Solaris/Darwin hosts: verify permissions in /tmp/vbox-$USER-ipc
* Linux hosts: fixed assertion on high network load (AMD64 hosts, fix for Linux distributions with glibc 2.6 and newer (bug #616)
* Linux hosts: don’t crash during shutdown with serial ports connected to a host device
* Solaris hosts: fixed incompatibility between IPSEC and host interface networking
* Solaris hosts: fixed a rare race condition while powering off VMs with host interface networking
* Solaris hosts: fixed VBoxSDL on Solaris 10 by shipping the required SDL library (bug #2475)
* Windows additions: fixed logged in users reporting via guest properties when using native RDP connections
* Windows additions: fixed Vista crashes when accessing shared folders under certain circumstances (bug #2461)
* Windows additions: fixed shared folders access with MS-Office (bug #2591)
* Linux additions: fixed compilation of vboxvfs.ko for 64-bit guests (bug #2550)
* SDK: added JAX-WS port caching to speedup connections

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* VMM: better error reporting for VT-x failures
* VMM: don’t over?ow the release log with PATM messages (bug #1775)
* VMM: ?xed save state restore in real mode (software virtualization only)
* GUI: work around a Qt bug on Mac OS X (bug #2321)
* GUI: properly install the Qt4 accessible plugin (bug #629)
* SATA: error message when starting a VM with a VMDK connected to a SATA port (bug #2182)
* SATA: ?xed Guru mediation when booting OpenSolaris/64; most likely applies to other guests as well (bug #2292)
* Network: don’t crash when changing the adapter link state if no host driver is attached (bug #2333)
* VHD: ?xed bug which prevents booting from VHD images bigger than 4GB (bug #2085)
* VRDP: ?xed a repaint problem when the guest resolution was not equal to the client resolution
* Clipboard: don’t crash when host service initialization takes longer than expected (Linux hosts only; bug #2001)
* Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe crash (bug #2212)
* Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe memory leak due to a Windows WMI memory leak (Vista only) (bug #2242)
* Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe delays GUI startup
* Linux hosts: handle jif?es counter over?ow (VM stuck after 300 seconds of host uptime; bug #2247)
* Solaris hosts: ?xed host or guest side networking going stale while using host interface networking (bug #2474)
* Solaris hosts: added support for using unplumbed network interfaces and Crossbow Virtual Network Interfaces (VNICs) with host interface networking
* Solaris hosts: reworked threading model improves performance for host interface networking
* Windows additions: ?xed crash when accessing deep directory structures in a shared folder
* Windows additions: improved shared folder name resolving (bug #1728)
* Windows additions: ?xed Windows 2000 shutdown crash (bug #2254)
* Windows additions: ?xed error code for MoveFile() if the target exists (bug #2350)
* Linux additions: ?xed seek() for ?les bigger than 2GB (bug #2379)
* Linux additions: support Ubuntu 8.10
* Linux additions: clipboard ?xes (bug #2015)
* Web services: improved documentation and ?xed example (bug #1642)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* VMM: fixed inability to run more than one VM in parallel (AMD-V on CPUs with erratum 170 only; bug #2167)
* VMM: VT-x stability fixes (bug #2179 and others)
* VMM: fixed Linux 2.6.26+ kernel crashes (used by Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha, Fedora 10 Alpha; bug #1875)
* VMM: fixed 64 bits Linux 2.6.26 kernel crashes (Debian)
* VMM: fixed Vista (32 bits) guest crash during boot when PAE and NX are enabled (applied to 64 bits hosts with VT-x enabled only)
* VMM: fixed OS/2 guest crashes during boot (AMD-V; bug #2132)
* GUI: fixed crash when trying to release an inaccessible image in the virtual disk manager
* GUI: fixed invalid error message for a changed snapshot path even if that path wasn't changed (bug #2064)
* GUI: fixed crash when creating a new hard disk image (bug #2060)
* GUI: fixed crash when adding a hard disk in the VM settings (bug #2081)
* GUI: fixed a bug where VirtualBox isn't working with the new QGtkStyle plugin (bug #2066)
* GUI: fixed VM close dialog in seamless mode (Mac OS X hosts only; bug #2067)
* GUI: fixed standard menu entries for NLS versions (Mac OS X hosts only)
* GUI: disable the VT-x/AMD-V setting when it's not supported by the CPU (or on Mac OS X hosts)
* VBoxManage: fixed crash during internalcommands createrawvmdk (bug #2184)
* VBoxManage: fixed output of snapshot showvminfo (bug #698)
* Guest properties: added information about guest network interfaces (Windows guests only)
* Shared Folders: fixed regression that caused Windows guest crashes (bug #2055)
* API: fixed number of installed CPUs (Solaris hosts only)
* VRDP: allow a client to reconnect to an existing session on the VRDP server by dropping the existing connection (configurable and disabled by default; only relevant when multiconnection mode is disabled)
* VRDP: fixed an image repaint problem
* Linux hosts: fixed bug in vboxdrv.ko that could corrupt kernel memory and panic the kernel (bug #2078)
* Linux hosts: compile fixes for kernel module on Linux 2.6.27
* Mac OS X hosts: added Python support
* Additions: fixed a possible hang in HGCM communication after a VM reboot
* Windows additions: added support for Windows XP 64 bits (bug #2117)
* Linux additions: deactivate dynamic resizing on Linux guests with buggy X servers
* Linux additions: support Ubuntu 8.10 guests and Fedora 9 guests (dynamic resizing disabled for the latter) (bug #1854)
* Linux additions: added installer check for the system architecture
* Linux additions: fixed Xorg modules path for some Linux distributions (bug #2128)
* VMDK: be more liberal with ambiguous parts of the format specification and accept more format variants (bug #2062)
* VHD: fixed a bug in the VHD backend which resulted in reading the wrong data (bug #2085)
* Solaris hosts: fixed kernel panic on certain machines when starting VMs with host interface networking (bug #2183)
* Solaris hosts: fixed inability to access NFS shares on the host when host interface networking was enabled
* Solaris hosts: installer now detects and reports when installing under the wrong architecture
* Solaris hosts: fixed security hardening that prevented starting VMs from non-global zones even as root (bug #1948)
* Solaris additions: combined the 32 bit and 64 bit additions installer into a single package
* Mac OS X hosts: experimental support for attaching a real serial port to the guest

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

* 64 bits guest support (64 bits host only)
* New native Leopard user interface on Mac OS X hosts
* The GUI was converted from Qt3 to Qt4 with many visual improvements
* New-version notifier
* Guest property information interface
* Host Interface Networking on Mac OS X hosts
* New Host Interface Networking on Solaris hosts
* Support for Nested Paging on modern AMD CPUs (major performance gain)
* Framework for collecting performance and resource usage data (metrics)
* Added SATA asynchronous IO (NCQ: Native Command Queuing) when accessing raw disks/partitions (major performance gain)
* Clipboard integration for OS/2 Guests
* Created separate SDK component featuring a new Python programming interface on Linux and Solaris hosts
* Support for VHD disk images

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

* VMM: VT-x fixes
* AHCI/SATA: improved performance
* GUI: keyboard fixes
* Linux installer: properly uninstall the package even if unregistering the DKMS module fails
* Linux additions: the guest screen resolution is properly restored
* Network: added support for jumbo frames (> 1536 bytes)
* Shared Folders: fixed guest crash with Windows Media Player 11
* Mac OS X: Ctrl+Left mouse click doesn’t simulate a right mouse click in the guest anymore. Use Hostkey+Left for a right mouse click emulation. (bug #1766)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* VMM: ?xed excessive logging (bug #1901)
* VMM: AMD-V stability ?xes (bug #1685)
* GUI: added support for Ctrl+Caps reversed keyboards (bug #1891)
* SATA: ?xed BSODs of Windows guests on a SATA disk (bug #1941)
* SATA: ?xed hard disk detection on Solaris 10 U5 (bug #1789)
* VBoxHeadless: don’t start the clipboard service (bug #1743)
* VBoxHeadless: added -vrdp parameter which allows to start the VM session without VRDP (bug #1960)
* VBoxManage: ?xes to creating raw disk/partition VMDK ?les, now accepts removable media on Windows (bug #1869)
* VRDP: ?xed communication with MS Remote Resktop Connection on MacOS X (bug #1337)
* VRDP: clipboard ?xes (bug #1410)
* VRDP: ?xed crash during PAM authentication (bug #1953)
* Shared Folders: ?xed a regression introduced in version 1.6.2: the shared folders service was sometimes not properly installed (Windows guests only, bug #1915)
* Shared Folders: don’t deny to load a VM if a shared folder is not accessible (bug #822)
* BIOS: allow to specify empty DMI strings (bug #1957)
* OSE archive: added missing Make?les (bug #1912)
* Linux hosts: workaround for buggy gcc-4.3 compilers (e.g. openSUSE 11)
* Linux hosts: one more ?x for compiling the kernel modules on Linux 2.6.27 (bug #1962)
* MacOS X hosts: shared folders unicode ?x
* Solaris hosts: ?xed link issue (bug #1840)
* Windows additions: allow to downgrade the package
* Windows additions: ?xed corrupted installer icon on Windows 2000 (bug #1486)
* Windows additions: ?xed bug when creating intermediate directories (bug #1870)
* Windows additions: implemented /xres=, /yres= and /depth= switches for the installer (bug #1990)
* Linux additions: properly unregister the misc device when unloading the kernel module
* Linux additions: ?xed startup order for recent Linux distributions again (e.g. openSUSE 11)
* Linux additions: attempt to ?x the autostart issue of !VBoxClient with Mandriva guests (bug #1699)
* Linux additions: ?xed detection of patched Linux 2.6.18 kernels of RHEL5 / FC6 / CentOS 5.2 (bugs #1899, #1973)
* Linux additions: added new mount ?ags dmode, fmode, umask, dmask and fmask allowing to override the ?le mode (bug #1776)
* Documentation: added a note that jumbo frames don’t work (bug #1877)
* Documentation: document special host interface names on openSUSE11 (bug #1892)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* AMD-V, VT-x: stability fixes
* Shared Folders: fixed host crash (Solaris host only, bugs #1336, #1646)
* Shared Folders: fixed BSOD when debugging with Visual Studio (bug #1627)
* Shared Folders: fixed BSOD when compiling on a shared folder (bug #1683)
* Shared Folders: several fixes/stability improvements
* SATA: fixed a race that could cause an occasional Windows guest system hang
* SATA: fixed spurious BIOS log messages
* Networking: fixed NIC tracing with NAT interfaces (bug #1790)
* USB: fixed crash under certain conditions when unplugging a USB device (bug #1295)
* Settings: fixed bug when converting 1.5.x settings
* RDP: fixed enabling the RDP server during runtime
* RDP: properly detect the rdesktop 1.6.0 RDP client
* RDP: fixed RDP crash (bug #1521)
* RDP: updated modified rdesktop client to version 1.6.0
* GUI: NLS improvements
* BIOS: added SMBIOS header to make Solaris and Vista recognize the DMI data
* ACPI: properly hide a disabled floppy controller
* VMM: small fixes to protected mode without paging
* VMDK: fixed handling of .vmdk images without UUIDs
* Windows hosts: fixed driver parameter validation issue in VBoxDrv.sys that could allow an attacker on the host to crash the system
* Windows hosts: installer now contains web service examples mentioned in the manual
* Linux hosts: properly deregister the Linux kernel module before uninstalling a Linux deb/rpm package
* Linux hosts: kernel module works now with Linux 2.6.27
* Linux hosts: fixed a typo in the vboxnet setup script for host network interfaces (bug #1714)
* Linux hosts: fixed usage of tar in installer (bug #1767)
* Linux hosts: fixed long guest shutdown time when serial port is enabled
* Solaris hosts: refuse to install in Sun xVM hypervisor dom0
* Solaris hosts: accept Solaris raw disks when for raw disk access
* Windows additions: made installation of shared folders more robust
* Windows additions: improved installation
* Linux additions: accept every user-defined guest video mode in /etc/X11/xorg.conf
* Linux additions: fixed startup order for recent Linux distributions (e.g. openSUSE 11)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

* GUI: fixed a bug which prevented to add more than one SATA drive from the GUI
* GUI: fixed a regression introduced in 1.6.0: the fullscreen mode was left on every guest video mode switch
* GUI: fixed several minor issues
* Networking: fixed a host interface networking regression introduced in 1.6.0
* VMM: fixed starting of VMs with AMD-V enabled
* VMM: massive performance enhancements for AMD-V
* VMM: stability improvements for AMD-V on Windows hosts
* VMM: correctly detect AMD CPUs with erratum 170 (AMD-V)
* VMM: detect inconsistent timestamp counters on certain AMD Phenom CPUs (Windows host only)
* VMM: fixed KVM check (Linux hosts only) XPCOM: fixed several races
* VMM:
xed a regression introduced in 1.6.0: Windows stuck during installation
* SATA: improved performance with Vista guests
* SATA: fixed statistics counter
* Shared Folders: several fixes (iTunes download, speed up browsing)
* ATA/IDE: fixed boot from CDROM if a medium was added while the boot menu was active
* Networking: provide an Intel PRO/1000 T Server (82543GC) network device emulation which is recognized by Windows XP guests
* Networking: fixes for the E1000 emulation (don't crash if not attached, fixed a bug in the statistics counter implementation)
* NAT: don't crash if the guest sent a DHCPRELEASE message with an invalid IP address
* NAT: fixed ARP reply for the NAT gateway and for the NAT name server if the guest IP range was changed
* Internal Networking: fixed shutdown if more than two VMs are connected to the same network
* BIOS: allow to change the DMI informatiton (see chapter 9.13, Con'guring the BIOS DMI information, page 125)
* RTC: fixed UIP emulation to prevent jumping of time in Solaris guests
* Windows host: VirtualBox installation directory corrected for 64 bits Windows
* Windows host: fixed VBoxVRDP.exe symlink
* Windows host: solved locking problems in raw partition VMDK support
* Windows host: fixed stability during high system load (page fault in KeQueryActiveProcessors)
* MacOS X host: fixed crashes under certain conditions
* Shared Folders: limited users without admin rights now also can use Shared Folders on Windows guests
* Linux hosts: fixed default runlevel for the kernel module helper script
* Solaris hosts: enabled support for VT-x and AMD-V
* Solaris hosts: dynamic loading of libdlpi fixes a problem where Solaris 10 was not able to start a VM
* Linux additions: fixed runlevels for kernel module helper scripts
* Linux additions: compatibility fixes with Linux 2.6.26
* Linux additions: fixed occasional guest kernel crash during unload of the vboxadd guest kernel module

This version is the first major update since being acquired by Sun.com. The following major new features were added:

* Solaris and Mac OS X host support
* Seamless windowing for Linux and Solaris guests
* Guest Additions for Solaris
* A webservice API
* SATA hard disk (AHCI) controller
* Experimental Physical Address Extension (PAE) support

In addition, the following items were
xed and/or added:

* GUI: added accessibility support (508)
* GUI: VM session information dialog
* VBoxHeadless: renamed from VBoxVRDP
* VMM: reduced host CPU load of idle guests
* VMM: many
xes for VT-x/SVM hardware-supported virtualization
* ATA/IDE: better disk geometry compatibility with VMware images
* ATA/IDE: virtualize an AHCI controller
* Storage: better write optimization, prevent images from growing unnecessarily.
* Network: support PXE booting with NAT
* Network:
xed the Am79C973 PCNet emulation for Nexenta guests
* NAT: improved builtin DHCP server (implemented DHCPNAK response)
* NAT: port forwarding stopped when restoring the VM from a saved state
* NAT: make subnet con
gurable
* XPCOM: moved to libxml2
* XPCOM:
xed VBoxSVC autostart race
* Audio: SoundBlaster 16 emulation
* USB:
xed problems with USB 2.0 devices
* MacOS X:
xed seamless mode
* MacOS X: better desktop integration, several looknfeel
xes
* MacOS X: switched to Quartz2D framebuffer
* MacOS X: added support for shared folders
* MacOS X: added support for clipboard integration
* Solaris: added host audio playback support (experimental)
* Solaris: made it possible to run VirtualBox from non-global zones
* Shared Folders: made them work for NT4 guests
* Shared Folders: many bug
xes to improve stability
* Seamless windows: added support for Linux guests
* Linux installer: support DKMS for compiling the kernel module
* Linux host: compatibility
xes with Linux 2.6.25
* Windows host: support for USB devices has been signi
cantly improved; many additional USB devices now work
* Windows Additions: automatically install AMD PCNet drivers on Vista guests
* Linux additions: several
xes, experimental support for RandR 1.2
* Linux additions: compatibility
xes with Linux 2.6.25

* GUI:
xed several error messages
* GUI:
xed registration dialog crashes once and for all
* GUI: really ask before resetting the VM
* GUI: release mouse and keyboard before the host activates the screensaver
* GUI:
xed issue with license display on big screens
* GUI: added setting for network name for internal networks
* GUI: added setting for network device type
* GUI: keyboard
xes
* GUI: seamless mode and fullscreen mode
xes
* GUI:
xed soaked hostkey keyup event under certain conditions
* GUI: more informative message dialog buttons
* GUI: VM selector context menu
* VBoxSDL: added -termacpi switch
* VBoxSDL:
xed automatic adaption of the guest screen resolution to the size of the VM window
* VMM: under heavy guest activity, for example when copying
les to/from a shared folder, the VM could crash with an assertion
* VMM: added an option to select PIIX4 (improves compatibility with Windows guests created by VMware)
* VMM:
xed a bug which could lead to memory corruption under rare circumstances
* VMM: improved performance of Solaris guests
* VRDP:
xed a 1.5.4 regression: VRDP client and server were out-of-sync if the VM was started using the GUI
* VRDP: proper error handling if the VRDP library could not be loaded
* VBoxManage:
xed crash during clonevdi
* VBoxManage: added list runningvms command
* VBoxManage: improved the compatibility when reading the partition table of a raw disk
* Shared Folders: added support for read-only shared folders
* Shared Clipboard: several
xes
* Network: experimental support for E1000 device emulation
* iSCSI: better check for miscon
gured targets
* iSCSI: allow to directly attach to internal networks with integrated mini IP stack
* PulseAudio: dont hang during VM initialization if no sound server is available
* VDI:
xed sized virtual disk images are now completely written during creation to workaround buggy sparse
le handling on some OS (e.g. Vista)
* VDI/VMDK: prevent indexing of .vdi and .vmdk
les on Windows hosts
* RDP:
xed compilation of the Linux rdesktop client on newer Linux kernels
* RDP: install rdesktop-vrdp on Linux hosts
* ACPI: added sleep button event
* Serial: proper handling of inaccessible host devices
* Windows installer: allow smooth upgrade without deinstallation
* Linux installer:
xed Slackware detection regression
* Linux installer: updated VBoxTunctl allowing to assign a tap device to a group on Linux kernels > 2.6.23
* Windows additions: several
xes, in particular for Windows NT4
* Linux additions:
xed installer for Kubuntu 8.04
* Linux additions: add default video mode for handling video mode hints from the host
* Linux host: compatibility
xes with Linux > 2.6.24