Software Update: VirtualBox 4.3 Beta 2

Oracle has released the second beta release of version 4.3 of VirtualBox. VirtualBox can be used to install other operating systems in a virtual environment on a computer. In this way it is possible to use different operating systems on the same hardware side by side and at the same time. VirtualBox is available for Windows XP and above, OS X, Linux, and Solaris, and is capable of many guest operating systems to turn.

In version 4.3 of VirtualBox, among other things, the complete virtualization code has been rewritten, which has solved several problems and also shows several performance improvements. In addition, there is video capture and support for ipv6, and several virtual machines running on the same computer can now communicate with each other via the internal network. The main changes made further in beta 2 can be found below.

Here is an incomplete list of chances since VirtualBox 4.3 Beta 1:

• VMM: fixed several regressions; fixed accessing certain MSRs (Intel and AMD)
• VMM: fixed 64-bit guests on 32-bit hosts including fixes for host crashes under certain conditions (see 11979).
• VMM: fixed panics on Mac OS X, see here
• VMM: allow to use VT-x in SMX mode
• GUI: more settings validation fixes
• GUI: medium enumeration overhaul to speed up opening the settings dialog
• GUI: fixed crashes under certain conditions on X11 hosts
• Main: extension pack framework can now support loading HGCM modules, contributed by Jeff Westphal
• Settings: the exclusive HW virtualization setting is now global, not per-VM as before
• NAT: fixed port forwarding
• NAT: binding IPv4 connectivity to specified interface (global extradata “NAT//SourceIp4″ ipv4)
• NAT: DHCP reports list of DNS servers (w/o loopback mapping)
• USB: detect USB2 devices on USB3 ports (Windows hosts only)
• OVF: fixed import regression with double OHCI controller
• 3D: fixed 3D-related crashes and Windows 8.1 rendering issues on OSX hosts
• 3D: fixed Ubuntu 13.04 3D desktop rendering issues
• Solaris hosts: dropped 32-bit support
• Windows Additions: several autoresize and seamless fixes
• Windows Additions: updated Wine sources
• Windows Additions: fixed NT4 regression, see here