Solved VirtualBox 4.2 on the way

Hopachi

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Good news for VirtualBox users!

Beta1 of the next major version 4.2 is out:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=50763
found on the official site:
[h=3]VirtualBox 4.2 Beta 1 released[/h]by Frank Mehnert » 3. Aug 2012, 16:33
Please do NOT use this VirtualBox Beta release on production machines. A VirtualBox Beta release should be considered a bleeding-edge release meant for early evaluation and testing purposes.

You can download the binaries here.

Please do NOT open bug reports at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Bugtracker but use our VirtualBox Beta Feedback forum to report any problems with the Beta. Please concentrate on reporting regressions since VirtualBox 4.1.18.

VirtualBox 4.2 will be a new major release. The following major new features were added:

  • Improved Windows 8 support, in particular many 3D-related fixes
  • GUI: VM groups (bug #288)
  • GUI: expert mode for wizards
  • GUI: allow to alter some settings during runtime
  • Support for up to 36 network cards, in combination with an ICH9 chipset configuration (bug #8805)
  • Resource control: added support for limiting network IO bandwidth; see the manual for more information
  • Added possibility to start VMs during system boot on Linux, OS X and Solaris; see the manual for more information (bug #950)
  • Added experimental support for Drag'n'drop from the host to Linux guests. Support for more guests and for guest-to-host is planned. (bug #81)
In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

  • VMM: improved VM context switch performance for Intel CPUs using nested paging
  • VMM: added support for FlushByASID features of AMD CPUs (Bulldozer and newer)
  • VMM: fixed unreal mode handling on older CPUs with VT-x (gPXE, Solaris 7/8/9; bug #9941)
  • VMM: fixed MP tables fixes for I/O APIC interrupt routing relevant for ancient SMP guests (e.g. old OS/2 releases)
  • VMM: support recent VIA CPUs (bug #10005)
  • GUI: network operations manager
  • GUI: allow taking screenshots of the current VM window content
  • GUI: allow automatically sorting of the VM list
  • GUI: allow starting of headless VMs from the GUI
  • GUI: allow reset, shutdown and poweroff from the Manager window
  • GUI: allow to globally limit the maximum screen resolution for guests
  • GUI: show the full medium part on hovering the list of recently used ISO images
  • GUI: do not create additional folders when a new machine has a separator character in its name (bug #6541)
  • GUI: don't crash on terminate if the settings dialog is still open (bug #9973)
  • Snapshots: fixed a crash when restoring an old snapshot when powering off a VM (bug #10491)
  • Settings: sanitise the name of VM folders and settings file (bug #10549)
  • Settings: allow to store the iSCSI initiator secret encrypted
  • E1000: 802.1q VLAN support
  • Storage: implemented burning of audio CDs in passthrough mode
  • Storage: implemented support for discarding unused image blocks through TRIM for SATA and IDE and UNMAP for SCSI when using VDI images
  • Storage: added support for QED images
  • Storage: added support for QCOW (full support for v1 and readonly support for v2 images)
  • Storage: added readonly support for VHDX images
  • Solaris additions: added support for X.org Server 1.11 and 1.12
  • Windows hosts: no need to recreate host-only adapters after a VirtualBox update
  • Windows hosts: updated toolchain; make the source code compatible to VC 2010 and enable some security-related compiler options
This list is not complete. This is a first beta and the code still needs some polishing and not all new features are documented yet. Although we already did a lot of testing and don't expect critical regressions, please backup your data before trying this Beta.

-Better Windows 8 support.
-Drag & drop first time on VBox (beginning with linux VM's)

Cheers
Hopachi
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
I've tested Win8 x64 RTM on VBox 4.2 RC1. The new additions work pretty well on my hardware and even the WEI scores are generated:

vbox4.2rc-win8rtm.png
In the picture: Only one cpu core and 2gig ram for the Win8 x64. Running on the VBox WDDM Display Adapter (pretty notorious for the glitches).

There are still some bugs but for me, it work well enough for now.
If you run with additions, don't go to seamless mode because there is a chance not to be able to get out again unless you shut down the VM. It can also happen in fullscreen mode but the VM remains operational, no problems.

I wonder if you get better scores without the additions... but resizing the VM window changes the resolution and so I prefer the additions regardless of the known bugs. Ok, if I'll get too annoyed, I'll roll back the graphics driver: problem solved, rest of additions are kept (shared folders and stuff...).

The Start Screen or Metro Apps don't work in seamless mode so beware the seamless mode, there is still work to do there.

(Even VMware Player's Unity Mode has trouble with Metro but I guess they are also working on it. Edit => VM Player v.4 only;
VMware Player v.5 works perfectly with Unity mode and Win8 Metro UI)

Conclusion:
The new VBox works pretty well. It's compiled in VS 2010 and has a new UI and slightly remastered icons.
We'll see if they still change something (and I mean stability fixes) until the final release of VBox 4.2, but they did a good job.


That's it for now.
Hopachi
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
The VBox RC2 is out:
Index of /virtualbox/4.2.0_RC2/

Didn't installed it yet but to summarize things: some important bugs were fixed (as see in the user manual and site) and some GUI enhancements are added.

I'm gonna install this and replace rc1 with it. Hmmm... they work pretty fast on VBox development.

Concerning Win8:
- improved support graphics
- read only support added for VHDX images: this means Hyper-V virtual machines/hdd's can be opened in VirtualBox*.


* note that Hyper-V cannot be enabled under a Win8 VBox machine. The mentioned feature is about a host Win8 with Hyper-V that creates some VM's and the HDD's of those VM's can be used on another host WITH VirtualBox => VBox & Hyper-V cannot run on the same host OS!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
I'm running the 64-bit RTM in version 1.1.18, and installing the guest additions
causes the metro screen to go into an unrecoverable refresh-loop.

Looking forward to trying this new release.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit (7 Ult, Vista & XP in V-Box)
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G 'Super-Laptop'.
    CPU
    Intel Sandy-Bridge i7-2670QM quad-core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    8GB DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel 3000HD / Ge-Force GT555M 2 gigs
    Sound Card
    Realtek/5.1 Dolby built-in including speakers.
    Monitor(s) Displays
    18.4" full-HD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1024
    Hard Drives
    2x750GB Toshiba internal, 1x500GB Seagate external, 1x2TB Seagate external, 1x640GB Toshiba pocket-drive, 1x640GB Samsung pocket drive.
    PSU
    Stock
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    Air-cooled
    Mouse
    I/R cordless.
    Internet Speed
    Borderline pathetic.
Some of the glitches still apply in the 4.2 RC2 version (fullscreen title/menu bar is not reachable all the times in fullscreen or seamless modes) but there are other improvements made, so if your VM is Win8, then it's recommended you use the latest 4.2 version for it.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
Thanks for that, Hopachi.

Will try soonest.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Enterprise 64-bit (7 Ult, Vista & XP in V-Box)
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire Ethos AS8951G 'Super-Laptop'.
    CPU
    Intel Sandy-Bridge i7-2670QM quad-core
    Motherboard
    Acer
    Memory
    8GB DDR3
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel 3000HD / Ge-Force GT555M 2 gigs
    Sound Card
    Realtek/5.1 Dolby built-in including speakers.
    Monitor(s) Displays
    18.4" full-HD
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1024
    Hard Drives
    2x750GB Toshiba internal, 1x500GB Seagate external, 1x2TB Seagate external, 1x640GB Toshiba pocket-drive, 1x640GB Samsung pocket drive.
    PSU
    Stock
    Case
    Laptop
    Cooling
    Air-cooled
    Mouse
    I/R cordless.
    Internet Speed
    Borderline pathetic.
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
VirtualBox 4.2 RC4 is out.
Index of /virtualbox/4.2.0_RC4/

The 4.2 RC's (4 for now) just seem to go on and on...
Maybe a better approach than 4.1 betas (there were 3).

changelog part (p211 user manual of this release until changelog is on site):
-fixed a memory leak in windows additions (vboxtray)
-crash fix regarding Win8 VM's
-added Windows 2012 on the ui list

-and many more

Edit:
The only minor thing that I see when starting VBox it's this:
vbox-window-rc4.png
It appears for a brief period of time in the upper left corner of screen and then disappears.
Searching this on google says it's something to do with 3D acceleration and/or remote desktop.
But since no VM's were available on the list, it makes more sense to assume they modified some parts of the 3d acceleration code (hopefully for better performance) and this is just a resulting rc4-only glitch.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
The same Win8 x64 VM that was tested in rc1 above, with the same settings, is again tested in rc4:
vbox-4.2-rc4-score.png
Same scores except slightly better Disk Performance and CPU.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
VBox 4.2.0 is released!
Read about the new features:
Oracle Announces Latest Release of Oracle VM VirtualBox

When I wrote this, the downloads for 4.2.0 were located here:
VirtualBox Downloads

The release changelog, according to user manual:
Version 4.2.0 (2012-09-13)

This is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Improved Windows 8 support, in particular many 3D-related fixes
• GUI: VM groups (bug #288)
• GUI: expert mode for wizards
• GUI: allow to alter some settings during runtime
• Support for up to 36 network cards, in combination with an ICH9 chipset configuration
(bug #8805)
• Resource control: added support for limiting network IO bandwidth; see chapter 6.9, Lim-
iting bandwidth for network I/O, page 96 (bug #3653)
• Added possibility to start VMs during system boot on Linux, OS X and Solaris; see chapter
9.24, Starting virtual machines during system boot, page 175 (bug #950)
• Added experimental support for Drag’n’drop from the host to Linux guests. Support for
more guests and for guest-to-host is planned. (bug #81)
• Added support for parallel port passthrough on Windows hosts
• Enhanced API for controlling the guest; please see the SDK reference and API documenta-
tion for more information

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• Mac OS X hosts: sign application and installer to avoid warnings on Mountain Lion
• VMM: fixed a potential host crash triggered by shutting down a VM when another VM was
running (only affected 32-bit hosts and 64-bit OS X hosts, 4.1 regression, bug #9897)
• VMM: fixed a potential host crash under a high guest memory pressure (seen with Windows
8 guests)

• VMM: improved VM context switch performance for Intel CPUs using nested paging
• VMM: added support for FlushByASID features of AMD CPUs (Bulldozer and newer)
• VMM: fixed unreal mode handling on older CPUs with VT-x (gPXE, Solaris 7/8/9; bug
#9941)
• VMM: fixed MP tables fixes for I/O APIC interrupt routing relevant for ancient SMP guests
(e.g. old OS/2 releases)
• VMM: support recent VIA CPUs (bug #10005)
• VMM: fixed handling of task gates if VT-x/AMD-V is disabled
• VMM: page fusion fixes
• GUI: network operations manager
• GUI: allow taking screenshots of the current VM window content (bug #5561)
• GUI: allow automatically sorting of the VM list
• GUI: allow starting of headless VMs from the GUI
• GUI: allow reset, shutdown and poweroff from the Manager window
• GUI: allow to globally limit the maximum screen resolution for guests
• GUI: show the full medium part on hovering the list of recently used ISO images
• GUI: do not create additional folders when a new machine has a separator character in its
name (bug #6541)
• GUI: don’t crash on terminate if the settings dialog is still open (bug #9973)
• GUI: consider scaled DPI values when display fonts on Windows hosts (bug #9864)
• GUI: if a bridged network interface cannot be found, don’t refuse to start the VM but allow
the user to change the setting immediately (bug )
• Snapshots: fixed a crash when restoring an old snapshot when powering off a VM (bugs
#9364, #9604, #10491)
• Clipboard: disable the clipboard by default for new VMs (see chapter 13.3.2.3, Clipboard,
page 206). It can be enabled at any time using the VM menu.
• Settings: sanitise the name of VM folders and settings file (bug #10549)
• Settings: allow to store the iSCSI initiator secret encrypted
• NAT: improvements for the built-in TFTP server (bugs #7385, #10286)
• NAT: fixed memory leak when disabling the NAT engine (bug #10801)
• E1000: 802.1q VLAN support (bug #10429)
• Storage: implemented burning of audio CDs in passthrough mode
• Storage: fixed audio CD passthrough for certain media players
• Storage: implemented support for discarding unused image blocks through TRIM for SATA
and IDE and UNMAP for SCSI when using VDI images
• Storage: added support for QED images
• Storage: added support for QCOW (full support for v1 and readonly support for v2 images)
• Storage: added readonly support for VHDX images
• USB: don’t crash if a USB device is plugged or unplugged when saving or loading the VM
state (SMP guests only)
• Solaris additions: added support for X.org Server 1.11 and 1.12
• Solaris additions: switched to using an in-kernel mouse driver
• Windows hosts: no need to recreate host-only adapters after a VirtualBox update
• Windows hosts: updated toolchain; make the source code compatible to VC 2010 and
enable some security-related compiler options

• Windows Additions: fixed memory leak in VBoxTray (bug #10808)


There can still exist some glitches, that's normal with such complex software and there will be minor updates as usual, no need to note that here.
But this (VirtualBox 4.2) is a recommended version for Windows 8 users and Win8 VM's.

Cheers
Hopachi
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
I'm using Vbox 4.2 for a while and all goes well.

A notice here is that a Win8 VM can be used or installed without the 3D checkbox enabled.
So the 3D acceleration checkbox is not grayed out or forced checked anymore.

It must be also true that Aero got a bit lighter. Themes still get displayed Without 3D acceleration and 128 mb VRAM or less. (not tried with 32mb or something like this but have no intention on crashing my VM since it works nicely).

This is still a problem (was also in version 4.1):
With 3D acceleration, the toolbox dissapears in fullscreen and you cannot minimize or close the VM window. Shutdown the VM it's the only option because Right Ctrl + F (switch from fullscreen) doesn't work. If you search for the toolbox notice that the mouse changes and you can accidentally click on some host files/launchers on that position on screen without seeing them and this is dangerous because you can delete files or mess with something important.:warn:

Fixes (many possibilities, each with its own advantages/disadvantages):
-Disable the fullscreen toolbar/toolbox and switch with Right Ctrl + F
or
-Disable 3D acceleration
It's possible that the problems with missing toolbox in fullscreen or seamless mode gets fixed without 3D acceleration since that it's just a WDDM 3D VBox glitch.:info:
or
-Uninstall VBox WDDM by rolling back driver (in Device Manager) to MS Basic Diaplay Adapter + This way you can use custom resolutions.

To end this properly I'm just gonna say that the VBox WDDM got better in version 4.2 but you can still keep the basic display with your custom resolutions if that works better.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    HP Envy DV6 7250
    CPU
    Intel i7-3630QM
    Motherboard
    HP, Intel HM77 Express Chipset
    Memory
    16GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel HD4000 + Nvidia Geforce 630M
    Sound Card
    IDT HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    15.6' built-in + Samsung S22D300 + 17.3' LG Phillips
    Screen Resolution
    multiple resolutions
    Hard Drives
    Samsung SSD 250GB + Hitachi HDD 750GB
    PSU
    120W adapter
    Case
    small
    Cooling
    laptop cooling pad
    Keyboard
    Backlit built-in + big one in USB
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Sensei
    Internet Speed
    slow and steady
    Browser
    Chromium, Pale Moon, Firefox Developer Edition
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
    Other Info
    That's basically it.
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