| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="efi">
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| 4 | <title>Alternative Firmware (EFI)</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | Oracle VM VirtualBox includes experimental support for the Extensible
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| 9 | Firmware Interface (EFI), which is an industry standard intended
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| 10 | to replace the legacy BIOS as the primary interface for
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| 11 | bootstrapping computers and certain system services later.
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| 12 | </p>
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| 13 | <p>
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| 14 | By default, Oracle VM VirtualBox uses the BIOS firmware for virtual
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| 15 | machines. To use EFI for a given virtual machine, you can enable
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| 16 | EFI in the machine's <b outputclass="bold">Settings</b>
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| 17 | window. See <xref href="settings-motherboard.dita#settings-motherboard"/>. Alternatively,
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| 18 | use the <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> command line interface as
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| 19 | follows:
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| 20 | </p>
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| 21 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --firmware efi</pre>
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| 22 | <p>
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| 23 | To switch back to using the BIOS:
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| 24 | </p>
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| 25 | <pre xml:space="preserve">VBoxManage modifyvm "VM name" --firmware bios</pre>
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| 26 | <p>
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| 27 | One notable user of EFI is Apple Mac OS X. More recent Linux
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| 28 | versions and Windows releases, starting with Vista, also offer
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| 29 | special versions that can be booted using EFI.
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| 30 | </p>
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| 31 | <p>
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| 32 | Another possible use of EFI in Oracle VM VirtualBox is development and
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| 33 | testing of EFI applications, without booting any OS.
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| 34 | </p>
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| 35 | <p>
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| 36 | Note that the Oracle VM VirtualBox EFI support is experimental and will
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| 37 | be enhanced as EFI matures and becomes more widespread. Mac OS X,
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| 38 | Linux, and newer Windows guests are known to work fine. Windows 7
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| 39 | guests are unable to boot with the Oracle VM VirtualBox EFI
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| 40 | implementation.
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| 41 | </p>
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| 42 | </body>
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| 43 | </topic>
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