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VirtualBox updated to 4.2.0

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VirtualBox, an open source x86 virtualization project available for free has just hit version 4.2.0. The new version, a 96.6 megabyte download, features the following fixes and changes:

New Features:
– 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 (bug #3653).

– 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).

– Added support for parallel port passthrough on Windows hosts.

– Enhanced API for controlling the guest; please see the SDK reference and API documentation 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 power off 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.

– 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 the manual for more information). It can be enabled at any time using the VM menu.

– Settings: sanitize 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 Additions: fixed memory leak in VBoxTray (bug #10808).

VirtualBox 4.2.0 is available for free and requires an Intel-based Mac running Mac OS X 10.6 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.

If you’ve tried the new version and have any feedback, please let us know.