This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:
OVF (Open Virtualization Format) appliance import and export (see Sectionа3.8, “Importing and exporting virtual machines” )
Host-only networking mode (see Sectionа6.7, “Host-only networking” )
Hypervisor optimizations with significant 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 Sectionа4.8, “Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL)” )
Added C API in addition to C++, Java, Python and Web Services
In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:
VMM: FreeBSD guest related fix for V86 flags (bug #2342)
VMM: fixed guru meditation when booting an AsteriskNow Linux VM (bug #2342)
VMM: fixed PGMPOOLKIND_FREE guru meditation (bugs #3356, #3431)
VMM: fixed Windows XP boot hang (guest PAE + nested paging only)
VMM: allow mixing of VT-x/AMD-V and software virtualization
VMM: fixed extremely slow safe mode booting in e.g. Windows 2008 (VT-x/AMD-V only)
VMM: significant speedup of certain GRUB boot loaders (e.g. Solaris) (VT-x/AMD-V only)
VMM: real-mode IOPL fix for DOS guests (VT-x only)
VMM: fixed VT-x detection with certain BIOSes that enable VT-x, but don't set the lock bit in MSR_IA32_FEATURE_CONTROL
VMM: fixed hibernation issues on Windows XP hosts (VT-x only; bug #1794)
VMM: properly emulate RDMSR from the TSC MSR, should fix some NetBSD guests
VMM: emulate RDPMC ; fixes Windows guests crashes when using the Kaspersky virus scanner (bug #1778)
NAT: fixed truncated downloads (FTP) (bug #3257)
NAT: blocked UDP packets caused a crash (bug #3426)
NAT: allow to configure the next server and the boot file via VBoxManage (bug #2759)
IDE: fixed hard disk upgrade from XML-1.2 settings (bug #1518)
Hard disk: support more VMDK file variants (including fixed-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/Config/FrameRate" CFG key is no longer necessary and no longer supported
USB: fixed BSOD on the host with certain USB devices (Windows hosts only; bug #1654)
E1000: properly handle cable disconnects (bug #3421)
VRDP: fixed hangs when VRDP server is enabled or disabled in runtime
Shared Folders: respect umask settings on Linux, OSX and Solaris hosts when creating files
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: fixed 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 filter driver to the correct guest pointing device (bug #1324)
Windows hosts: fixed BSOD when starting a VM with enabled host interface (bug #3414)
Linux hosts: do proper reference counting to prevent unloading the vboxnetflt module as long as this code is in use (bug #3104)
Linux hosts: do not leave zombies of VBoxSysInfo.sh (bug #3586)
Linux installers: fixes 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 file 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 floppy icon from the status bar
GUI: show build revision in about dialog
GUI: fixed 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: fixed 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: fixed VM hangs when starting guests with 3D acceleration enabled (bug #3437)
PXE: fixed boot hangs when hardware virtualization is used (bug #2536)
LsiLogic: fixed problems with Solaris guests
Main API: close machine settings XML file when unregistering machine (bug #3548)