Changelog

VirtualBox 1.6.0 (released 2008-04-30)

This version is a major update. 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 fixed 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 fixes 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: fixed 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 configurable
• XPCOM: moved to libxml2
• XPCOM: fixed VBoxSVC autostart race
• Audio: SoundBlaster 16 emulation
• USB: fixed problems with USB 2.0 devices
• MacOS X: fixed seamless mode
• MacOS X: better desktop integration, several look’n’feel fixes
• 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 bugfixes to improve stability
• Seamless windows: added support for Linux guests
• Linux installer: support DKMS for compiling the kernel module
• Linux host: compatibility fixes with Linux 2.6.25
• Windows host: support for USB devices has been significantly improved; many additional USB devices now work
• Windows Additions: automatically install AMD PCNet drivers on Vista guests
• Linux additions: several fixes, experimental support for RandR 1.2
• Linux additions: compatibility fixes with Linux 2.6.25

VirtualBox 1.5.6 (released 2008-02-19)

• GUI: fixed several error messages
• GUI: fixed 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: fixed 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 fixes
• GUI: seamless mode and fullscreen mode fixes
• GUI: fixed soaked hostkey keyup event under certain conditions
• GUI: more informative message dialog buttons
• GUI: VM selector context menu
• VBoxSDL: added -termacpi switch
• VBoxSDL: fixed automatic adaption of the guest screen resolution to the size of the VM window
• VMM: under heavy guest activity, for example when copying files 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: fixed a bug which could lead to memory corruption under rare circumstances
• VMM: improved performance of Solaris guests
• VRDP: fixed 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: fixed 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 fixes
• Network: experimental support for E1000 device emulation
• iSCSI: better check for misconfigured targets
• iSCSI: allow to directly attach to internal networks with integrated mini IP stack
• PulseAudio: don’t hang during VM initialization if no sound server is available
• VDI: fixed sized virtual disk images are now completely written during creation to workaround buggy sparse file handling on some OS (e.g. Vista)
• VDI/VMDK: prevent indexing of .vdi and .vmdk files on Windows hosts
• RDP: fixed 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: fixed 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 fixes, in particular for Windows NT4
• Linux additions: fixed installer for Kubuntu 8.04
• Linux additions: add default video mode for handling video mode hints from the host
• Linux host: compatibility fixes with Linux > 2.6.24

VirtualBox 1.5.4 (released 2007-12-29)

• USB 2.0 support
• PulseAudio backend
• GUI: fixed accelerators in German translation
• GUI: fixed registration dialog crashes
• GUI: allow to enter unicode characters to the name of the registration dialog
• GUI: pre-select attached media in the disk manager when opened from the VM settings dialog
• GUI: remember the last active VM
• GUI: don’t accept empty paths for serial/parallel ports in XML
• GUI: fixed NumLock / CapsLock synchronizazion on Windows hosts
• GUI: don’t start the kernel timer if no VM is active (Linux host)
• VMM: improved compatibility with FreeBSD guests
• VMM: properly restore CR4 after leaving VT-x mode
• VMM: patch code and disassembler updates
• VMM: with VT-x a pending interrupt could be cleared behind our back
• VMM: workaround for missed cpuid patch (some Linux guests refuse to boot on multi-core CPUs)
• VMM: fixed code for overriding CPUID values
• API: don’t crash when trying to create a VM with a duplicate name
• API: don’t crash when trying to access the settings of a VM when some other VMs are not accessible
• API: fixed several memory leaks
• ATA/IDE: fixed SuSE 9.1 CD read installer regression
• Floppy: fixed inverted write protect flag
• USB: virtualize an EHCI controller
• USB: several minor fixes
• Network: fixed MAC address check
• Network: host interface fixes for Solaris guests
• Network: guest networking stopped completely after taking a snapshot
• Network: don’t crash if a network card is enabled but not attached
• PXE: fix for PXE-EC8 error on soft reboot
• NAT: update the DNS server IP address on every DNS packet sent by the guest
• VGA: reset VRAM access handers after a fullscreen update
• VGA: don’t overwrite guest’s VRAM when displaying a blank screen
• ACPI: implemented the sleep button event
• VRDP: fixed crash when querying VRDP properties
• VRDP: netAddress fixes
• VRDP: fixed the Pause/Break keys over VRDP
• VRDP: sync NumLock / CapsLock sync over VRDP
• VRDP: workaround for scrambled icons with a guest video mode of 16bpp
• VRDP: reset modifer keys on RDP_INPUT_SYNCHRONIZE
• VRDP: reset RDP updates after resize to prevent obsolete updates
• Clipboard: Windows host/guest fixes
• Clipboard: fixed a SEGFAULT on VM exit (Linux host)
• Clipboard: fixed a buffer overflow (Linux host)
• Shared Folders: fixed memory leaks
• Linux installer: remove the old kernel module before compiling a new one
• Linux host: compatibility fixes with Linux 2.6.24
• Linux host: script fixes for ArchLinux
• Linux host: load correct HAL library to determine DVD/floppy (libhal.so.1 not libhal.so)
• Linux host: make sure the tun kernel module is loaded before initializing static TAP interfaces
• Windows additions: fixed hang during HGCM communication
• Windows additions: fixed delay when shutting down the guest
• Linux additions: added sendfile support to allow HTTP servers to send files on shared folders
• Linux additions: make additions work with Fedora 8 (SELinux policy added)
• Linux additions: sometimes ARGB pointers were display incorrectly
• Linux additions: several small script fixes

VirtualBox 1.5.2 (released 2007-10-18)

• Windows Installer: fixed installation on Windows 2000 hosts
• Windows Installer: proper warning when installing a 32-bit VirtualBox version on 64-bit Windows and vice versa
• Linux Installer: no longer require license acceptance during install, instead at first GUI startup (addresses issues with hanging installer on Debian based distributions)
• GUI: added user registration dialog
• GUI: fixed crashes on 64-bit Linux hosts
• GUI: several fixes and improvements to seamless mode
• GUI: fixed DirectDraw mode with certain video cards (e.g. Intel i915)
• GUI: fixed incorrect guest resolution after leaving fullscreen mode
• GUI: improved keyboard handling on Linux host
• GUI: show fatal VM aborts (aka "Guru Meditation")
• GUI: fixed crashes due to a display update race condition on some systems
• GUI: added ACPI shutdown option to the VM close dialog
• GUI: NLS improvements
• BIOS: fixed floppy boot menu
• BIOS: expose the VM UUID in the DMI/SMBIOS area
• VGA: fixed CGA video modes
• VGA: fixed 8-bit DAC handling (Solaris setup)
• VMM: fixed issue with VT-x on Windows 64-bit hosts
• VMM: improved compatibility with Linux KVM
• VMM: fixed issues with Fedora 8 guests
• VMM: fixed fatal errors while installing Windows guests when using AMD-V
• VMM: fixed sporadic hangs when minimizing VM window and using VT-x/AMD-V
• VMM: fixed high load of ksoftirq on tickless Linux hosts
• VMM: fixed Windows 2000 guests hangs related to IRQ sharing
• VMM: fixed sporadic errors during openSUSE 10.3 installation
• VMM: fixed issue with Linux 2.6.23 guests
• VMM: fixed issues with Solaris guests
• VMM: fixed stability issue related to incorrect relocations
• Serial: significantly reduced CPU utilization
• Network: fixed issues with FreeBSD guests
• Network: added MII support (100MBit detection fix)
• Network: improved MAC address handling
• Network: added PXE release logging
• IDE: large reads from CD could exceed the I/O buffer size
• Audio: load ALSA dynamically on Linux (i.e. do not fail when ALSA is not present)
• VRDP: support additional RDP clients (SunRay, WinConnect, Mac OS X)
• VRDP: fixed issues when client color depth is higher than server color depth
• VRDP: make PAM authentication service name configurable
• VRDP: increased stack size to deal with stack consuming PAM library calls
• Additions: various fixes and enhancements to clipboard handling
• Windows Additions: fixed issues with Additions on NT 4 guests
• Windows Additions: added support for 8-bit video modes
• Windows Additions: allow specifying custom resolutions for secondary screens
• Windows Additions: several fixes and improvements for DirectDraw
• Windows Additions: improved the mouse filter driver compatibility with other mouse drivers
• Linux Additions: several fixes and enhancements to Shared Folders
• Linux Additions: added support for X.org Server 1.4
• Shared folders: fixed MS Powerpoint access issues (Linux host)
• API: fixed RPC_E_CHANGED_MODE startup error on Windows hosts
• API: fixed SMP race condition on Linux hosts
• API: fixed stability issues on Windows hosts in low memory conditions

VirtualBox 1.5.0 (released 2007-09-03)

• Major: Seamless windows
• Major: Virtual serial ports
• Major: Support for 64-bit Windows hosts
• Major: Intel PXE 2.1 network boot
• Major: Guest Additions for IBM OS/2 Warp
• GUI: sometimes two mouse cursors were visible when Windows guest additions became active
• GUI: added VT-x/AMD-V settings
• GUI: disable 'Show log...' menu entry to prevent crash if VM list is empty
• GUI: the log window grabbed the keyboard
• GUI: fixed error handling if Linux host clipboard initialization fails
• GUI: pass the Pause key and the PrtScrn key to the guest (Linux hosts)
• GUI: increased maximum guest RAM to 2 GB (Windows host)
• GUI: improved rendering performance (Windows host)
• GUI: status lights for USB and shared folders
• GUI: properly respect the DISPLAY environment variable
• GUI: download Guest Additions from virtualbox.org in case they are not present locally
• VRDP: support for multimonitor configurations in Windows guests
• VRDP: support for MS RDP6 and MS RDP Mac clients
• VRDP: added support for WinConnect RDP client
• VRDP: performance improvements
• VRDP: fixed sporadic client disconnects
• VBoxManage: never delete existing target during clonevdi
• VBoxManage: properly print the size of currently used hard disks
• VMM: fixed Xandros Desktop 4.1 hang
• VMM: fixed VT-x/AMD-V hang with newer versions of gcc (Linux hosts)
• VMM: improved stability of VT-x
• VMM: check for disabled AMD-V when detecting support
• VMM: fixed AMD-V issue when running OS/2 guests
• VMM: fixed application startup regressions (e.g. VideoReDo)
• VMM: fixed regression that broke disk access in OS/2 and OpenBSD guests (possibly much more)
• VMM: fixed crashes if memory allocation failed (Linux)
• VMM: fixed enabling of Local APIC on AMD hosts (fixed Ubuntu Feisty installation kernel hang during boot)
• VMM: fixed XFree86 4.3 (Debian/Sarge) segfaults when switching to text mode
• VMM: refuse to start when KVM is active (Linux Host)
• VMM: fixed bootup hangs with ReactOS
• VMM: fixed out-of-memory errors under certain environments with enough appropriate memory available
• API: fixed occassional crashes of the VBoxSVC server during VM shutdown (Linux host)
• API: some components were not notified when mounting a CD/DVD
• VMDK: improve geometry compatibility with existing VDMK images
• IDE/Floppy: optionally make non-available host device non-fatal
• IDE: improve emulation accuracy of the IRQ line between master and slave drive
• IDE: guest could freeze when unmounting the CD/DVD drive
• VGA: several text mode fixes in particular with Windows DOS boxes
• USB: fixed some issues with Windows hosts
• USB: fixed race condition between udev and USB filters (Linux host)
• Shared Folders: reversed network provider order to increase mapping performance (Windows guest)
• Shared Folders: browsable from Windows Explorer (Windows guests)
• Shared Folders: stability fixes (Windows guest)
• Shared Folders: case sensitivity fixes (Windows guest and Linux host)
• Audio: fall back to the NULL audio driver if no voice could be opened
• NAT: fixed crash
• Guest Additions: reworked the shared clipboard for Linux hosts and guests based on user feedback about problems with individual applications
• Guest Additions: don't allow to disable mouse pointer integration for Linux guests as an Xorg hardware mouse cursor cannot be turned into a software mouse cursor
• Guest Additions: Linux guests shipping Xorg 1.3 (e.g. Fedora 7, Ubuntu Gutsy) are now supported
• Guest Additions: added DirectDraw support to the Windows display driver

VirtualBox 1.4.0 (released 2007-06-06)

• General: added support for OS X hosts
• General: added support for AMD64 hosts
• General: signed all executables and device drivers on Windows
• GUI: added user interface for Shared Folders
• GUI: added context menu for network adapters
• GUI: added VM description field for taking notes
• GUI: always restore guest mouse pointer when entering VM window (Windowss host)
• GUI: added configuration options for clipboard synchronization
• GUI: improved keyboard handling on Linux hosts
• GUI: added first run wizard
• GUI: improved boot device order dialog
• GUI: auto-resize did not work after save/restore
• GUI: restore original window size when returning from fullscreen mode
• GUI: fixed screen update when switching to fullscreen mode
• GUI: the size of the VM window was sometimes resetted to 640x480
• GUI: added localizationss
• GUI: various minor improvements
• VBoxManage: added convertdd command
• API: automatically start and terminate VBoxSVC on Linux and OS X hosts
• VMM: increased startup performance due to lazy memory allocation
• VMM: significantly increased maximum guest memory size
• VMM: fixed issues with V86 mode
• VMM: support V86 extensions (VME)
• VMM: support guests with a full GDT
• VMM: fixed boot hangs for some Linux kernels
• VMM: improved FreeBSD and OpenBSD support
• VMM: improved performance of guests that aggressively patch kernel code (very recent Linux 2.6 kernels)
• VMM: added workaround for a design flaw in AMD AM2 CPUs where the timestamp counter shows large differences among CPU cores
• VMM: fixed Linux guests with grsecurity
• VMM: fixed issue on 2G/2G Linux kernels (even 1G/3G kernels should work)
• VMM: fixed Linux detection of Local APIC on non-Intel and non-AMD CPUs
• VMM: timing improvements with high host system loads (VM starvation)
• VMM: experimental AMD SVM hardware virtualization support now also handles real and protected mode without paging
• VMM: added system time offset parameter to allow for VMs to run in the past or future
• VMM: provide an MPS 1.4 table if the IOAPIC is enabled
• RDP: allow binding the RDP server to a specific interface
• RDP: added support for clipboard synchronization
• RDP: fixed problems with OS X RDP client
• RDP: added support for multiple simultaneous connections to one VM
• RDP: added support for MS RDP6 clients (Vista)
• Storage: experimental support for VMDK images (writethrough mode only, no snapshots yet)
• Storage: raw host disk support, including individual partitions
• IDE: improve CHS geometry detection
• IDE: fixed problem that only one VM could open an immutable image
• NAT: allow more than one card configured for NAT networking
• NAT: pass first entry in DNS search list (Linux host) or primary DNS suffix (Windows host) as domain name in DHCP
• NAT: support UDP broadcasts, which enables using Windows shares
• NAT: only warn if the name server could not be determined, no fatal error anymore
• NAT: fix a potential problem with incorrect memory allocation
• Internal Networking: fixed issue on Windows hosts
• Host Interface Networking: fixed sporadic crashes on interface creation/destruction (Windows host)
• Host Interface Networking: reworked TAP handling for Linux 2.6.18+ compatibility
• PXE: show error for unsupported V86 case
• PXE: small fix for parsing PXE menu entry without boot server IP
• Network: fixed network card hang after save/restore
• USB: Rewrote Windows USB handling without the need for a filter driver
• USB: Possible to steal arbitrary devices in Windows
• Serial: added serial ports with support for named pipes (local domain sockets) on the host
• Audio: fixed problem with ALSA on Linux before 2.6.18 blocking other ALSA clients on the system
• Audio: fixed problem with ALSA on AMD64 hosts
• Input: fixed PS/2 mouse detection in Win 3.x guests
• Shared Folders: fixed VM save/restore behaviour
• Shared Folders: functionality and stability fixes
• Shared Folders: allow non admin users to map folders
• Additions: added clipboard synchronization
• Windows Additions: fixed dynamic resolution changes after save/restore
• Windows Additions: added AMD PCNet driver for Windows Vista guests (with kind permission from AMD)
• Linux Additions: fixed a dependency problem which caused the vboxadd kernel module sometimes start after the X server
• Linux Additions: make VBox version visible in Linux modules with modinfo
• Linux Additions: make X11 guest video driver accept arbitrary X resolutions
• Linux Additions: make X11 setup work if /tmp uses a separate file system
• Linux Additions: better support unknown distributions
• Linux Installer: force a non-executable stack for all binaries and shared libraries
• Linux Installer: make it work on SELinux-enabled systems
• Linux Installer: ship VBoxTunctl

VirtualBox 1.3.8 (released 2007-03-14)

• Windows installer: fixed installation problem if UAC is active
• Linux installer: added RPM for rhel4 and Mandriva 2007.1
• Linux installer: remove any old vboxdrv modules in /lib/modules/*/misc
• Linux installer: many small improvements for .deb and .rpm packages
• Linux installer: improved setup of kernel module
• GUI: Host-Fn sends Ctrl-Alt-Fn to the guest (Linux guest VT switch)
• GUI: fixed setting for Internal Networking
• GUI: show correct audio backend on Windows (dsound)
• GUI: improved error messages if the kernel module is not accessible
• GUI: never fail to start the GUI if the kernel module is not accessible
• VMM: fixed occasional crashes when shutting down Windows TAP device
• VMM: fixed issues with IBM's 1.4.2 JVM in Linux guests
• RDP: fixed color encoding with 24bpp
• BIOS: zero main memory on reboot
• BIOS: added release logging
• USB: fixed parsing of certain devices to prevent VBoxSVC crashes
• USB: properly wakeup suspended ports
• USB: fixed a problem with unplugged USB devices during suspend
• Audio: fixed crashes on Vista hosts
• NAT: allow configuration of incoming connections (aka port mapping)
• Network: hard reset network device on reboot
• iSCSI: fixed a hang of unpaused VMs accessing unresponsive iSCSI disks
• Linux Additions: support Xorg 7.2.x
• Linux Additions: fixed default video mode if all other modes are invalid
• Linux Additions: set default DPI to 100,100
• Linux Additions: fixed initialization of video driver on X server reset

VirtualBox 1.3.6 (released 2007-02-20)

• Windows installer: perform installation for all users instead of just the current user (old behavior still available)
• Linux installer: fixed license display to not block installation
• Linux installer: added RPM for openSUSE 10.2
• GUI: fixed problems with several keyboard layouts on Linux hosts
• GUI: added online help on Linux hosts (using kchmviewer)
• GUI: fixed handle leak on Windows hosts
• Graphics: increased VRAM limit to 128MB
• BIOS: fixed CD/DVD-ROM detection in Windows Vista guests
• VMM: fixed incompatibility with OpenBSD 4.0
• VDI: fixed issues with snapshot merging
• Network: fixed incompatibility between Vista UAC and Host Interface Networking
• Network: fixed issues with Windows NT 4.0 guests
• Audio: fixed problem with ALSA on Linux before 2.6.18 causing system reboots
• RDP: added support for MS RDP 6.0 clients
• RDP: fixed issue with PAM authentication on certain distributions
• RDP: fixed sporadic disconnects with MS RDP clients
• RDP: fixed memory leak
• iSCSI: improved behavior when pausing a VM with iSCSI connections
• iSCSI: improved read timeout handling

VirtualBox 1.3.4 (released 2007-02-12)

• General: fixed unresolved symbol issue on Windows 2000 hosts
• General: added warnings at VirtualBox startup when there is no valid Linux kernel module
• General: fixed problem with unrecognized host CDROM/DVD drives on Linux
• General: fixed compatibility issue with SELinux
• GUI: improved USB user interface, easier filter definitions, menu to directly attach specific devices
• GUI: added VM settings options for VRDP
• GUI: fixed GDI handle leak on Windows hosts
• GUI: worked around issue in the Metacity window manager (GNOME) leading to unmovable VM windows
• GUI: show an information dialog before entering fullscreen mode about how to get back
• GUI: several fixes and improvements
• VMM: fixed occasional crashes when shutting down a Windows guest
• VMM: fixed crash while loading Xorg on openSUSE 10.2
• VMM: fixed problems with OpenBSD 3.9 and 4.0
• VMM: fixed crash while loading XFree86 in SUSE 9.1
• VMM: fixed Debian 3.1 (Sarge) installation problem (network failure)
• VMM: fixed crash during SUSE 10.2 installation
• VMM: fixed crash during Ubuntu 7.04 RC boot
• VMM: fixed crash during ThinClientOS (Linux 2.4.33) bootup
• ATA/IDE: pause VM when host disk is full and display message
• ATA/IDE: fixed incompatibility with OpenSolaris 10
• VDI containers: do not allocate blocks when guest only writes zeros to it (size optimization when zeroing freespace prior to compacting)
• CDROM/DVD: fixed media recognition by Linux guests
• Network: corrected reporting of physical interfaces (fixes Linux guest warnings)
• Network: fixed IRQ conflict causing occassional major slowdowns with XP guests
• Network: significantly improved send performance
• Audio: added mixer support to the AC'97 codec (master volume only)
• Audio: added support for ALSA on Linux (native, no OSS emulation)
• iSCSI: improved LUN handling
• iSCSI: fixed hang due to packet overflow
• iSCSI: pause VM on iSCSI connection loss
• Linux module: never fail unloading the module (blocks Ubuntu/Debian uninstall)
• Linux module: improved compatibility with NMI watchdog enabled
• Windows Additions: fixed hardware mouse pointer with Windows 2003 Server guests
• Linux Additions: compile everything from sources instead of using precompiled objects
• Linux Additions: better compatibility with older glibc versions
• Linux Additions: when uninstalling, only delete the files we put there during installation, don't remove the directory recursively to prevent unwanted data loss
• Linux Installer: added support for Slackware
• Linux Additions: added support for Linux 2.4.28 to 2.4.34
• RDP: fixed sporadic disconnects with MS RDP clients
• RDP: fixed race condition during resolution resize leading to rare crashes

VirtualBox 1.3.2 (released 2007-01-15)

• first public version