VirtualBox 1.6.2

The SUN company released an updated version of VirtualBox. Overall, the upgrade is aimed at correcting a number of various bugs.

VirtualBox - a program for creating virtual machines. By allocating resources it creates a separate virtual computer system from their own resources, and, most importantly, with its own operating system. For example, the computer operating system is Windows in the two accounts you can create a virtual system, under which use certain resources and install Linux. Or, rather, on computers running Linux install Windows. The program supports the installation of the operating system from a disk or file-image. Everything is very simple and will not cause serious difficulties even for novice users. It remains to add that the program is completely free and distributed on the basis of open source.

The main operating system VirtualBox supports Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Solaris. In the role of a virtual system could be virtually all popular operating systems.

List of changes:

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: fixed 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