VMWare Fusion and Parallels have been the two dominant OS X virtualization methods for running Windows (or Linux) inside of OS X.
While both are great applications, they each cost around $80 US.
Recently, Sun Microsystems (makers of Solaris, big purple servers and pony tailed CEO’s) have unleashed a new virtualization product on the world: VirtualBox, and while it lacks many of the features of the other two it’s free, easy to use and works reasonably well.
Step 1: Download
Download the latest version of VirtualBox for OS X from the support Wiki.
Step 2: Install VirtualBox
Mount the Downloaded Disk Image and run the VirtualBox.mpkg file. This should place a VirtualBox.app in your /Applications Directory
Step 3: Create a Virtual Machine
Helpful wizards jump up to walk you through creating a new Virtual Machine, but in case you miss them, click the blue “New” button in the upper left of the main VirtualBox window and follow the directions.
You will need to make 2 decisions:
- How much RAM to allocate. I found that 512 was adequate for a stock Windows XP installation. This will vary greatly with what you are attempting to use the virtual machine for, but for cross browser testing and basic usage was fine.
- How much HardDrive space to use. The wizard will strongly encourage you to set this “dynamically”, meaning that although you may specify that the virtual machine can use up to 25 GB of space it won’t use that much right away. Instead, it will slowly increase the amount of space taken as you use the virtual machine.
Step 4: Install Windows
At the conclusion of the Virtual Machine creation wizard, you will be prompted to begin the Windows installation process. Push F8, partition the hard drive with NTFS, enter your code, choose your TimeZone and an hour of tediousness later you’ll be dumped at the Windows Desktop.
Step 5: Setup Networking
By default, the VirtualBox networking was set to Network Address Translation (NAT), where the VirtualBox pretends that it’s in its own separate network from the network that your Mac is actually running on. While this can be useful in some specialized cases, to just get up and running it’s not necessary.
- Shutdown the Windows virtual machine
- With the Virtual machine selected. Click “Settings” and choose “Network”.
- Set the Attached value to “Host Interface”
- Make sure that the correct host interface is set in the bottom of the screen. i.e. if you’re using wireless select AirPort. If you’re plugged in, select Ethernet.
- Restart the Windows virtual machine and you should be good to go. The machine should pickup an address automatically off of your home network. *
* There is a fairly big assumption here that you’re in a place with a working DHCP server. If this is not the case: you’re in a Starbucks, Don’t have Internet access, etc. you’re going to need to fiddle with the network settings.
[updated 9/30/2008] – I was up too late when I made the original post for this and needed to go back and fix some grammatical and formatting errors.
Interesting. I’ve bought Parallels 3.0, but as I’m not compeltely satisfied with it, I might give Virtualbox a spin. Do you have any idea how it performs compared to Parallels and VMware Fusion?
Out of interest…
What features do you think VirtualBox lacks which VMware and Parallels have?
- FB
@Asbjorn – You can definitely still tell you are in a Virtual Machine, the mouse “skitters” a little bit. Responsiveness is just a little slower than you’d find generally acceptable, that sort of thing.
@Fat Bloke – the biggest feature I think VirtualBox is missing is Fusion’s “Coherence” feature where you can designate an application to run as if it were a mac app (not confined to the virtual screen session), also things like setting file types to open in applications in the VM, etc.