VirtualBox 4.2 nears with release candidate

With the arrival of a first release candidate, version 4.2 of VirtualBox is past its feature freeze and is nearly complete. VirtualBox 4.2, which entered beta testing earlier this month, will be the next major update to Oracle's open source desktop virtualisation application and will bring various improvements and new features, such as a new "expert mode" in wizards aimed at making them quicker for experienced users.

The new version has better support for Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8 operating system. Instead of first having to shut down a virtual machine (VM), users can now modify some settings while a VM is running. Other changes include experimental support for dragging and dropping files from hosts to Linux guests, an option to limit network IO bandwidth, and the addition of support for up to 36 network cards in conjunction with an ICH9 chipset configuration. While its developers say that the RC is more stable than the beta, they note that it is still not ready for production use.

A preliminary list of changes and new features can be found in a post on the VirtualBox.org forums. The first release candidate for VirtualBox 4.2 can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OS X, Solaris and various Linux distributions. Those testing the RC are asked to use the VirtualBox Beta Feedback forums to provide feedback and report any bugs that they find. The current stable release of VirtualBox is version 4.1.18 from the end of June.

See also:

• VirtualBox 4.1 supports cloning of VMs, a report from The H.

(crve)