Once again, Parallels and VMware Fusion solve this problem for you. You're not home free yet, because you now face another problem that VirtualBox makes you solve for yourself (described in the next section). This time, press any key to start the Windows installer. Close the window to power down the virtual machine and click Start again.
The one you want is the Screen tab, and when you eventually find it, change the Scale factor from 100% to 200%, click OK, and then press the Start button.īecause VirtualBox shows you alert messages at the top of the window while you boot from the Windows CD image, you'll probably miss the Press Any Key message that the CD image displays and you won't be able to install Windows. The name of the tab you clicked on will become invisible, but the name of the one you actually want to use will now appear. You can see the name by clicking on another tab. The name of the current tab in the settings dialog is invisible, and only a white box appears where the name of the tab should be. Here you see one of VirtualBox's long standing bugs. Here's the fix that the VirtualBox interface doesn't tell you: On a Retina Mac, click the Settings button in the VirtualBox menu for your Windows 11 system, then click Display. Installing VirtualBox Part II: Some Important Hints
If, however, you have a Retina Mac and you click the Start button, Windows will appear in a tiny window with fonts too small to read – and nothing in the VirtualBox interface tells you how to fix it. Next, follow the prompts and install Windows 11 from the Windows disk image. If your Mac is an old one without a Retina display, then go ahead and click the Start button on VirtualBox's menu to start up the Windows 11 machine. You'll end up with a Windows 11 virtual machine listed in VirtualBox's sidebar. When you have the Windows disk image ready, click the New button in Virtual Box's menu, and accept the defaults.
But before you do, you'll need to download a Windows 10 or 11 disk image from Microsoft's web site and have the image available on disk. When VirtualBox starts up, you'll probably guess that you need to click on the New button that creates a new virtual machine. With some diligent web-searching, you can find much of what I tell you here, but since I had to do it to test this software, I figured I'd save you the time. (VMware Fusion isn't as effortless as Parallels Desktop, and requires some settings changes before Windows 11 will run, but it's far easier to work with than VirtualBox.) I describe all the necessary workarounds that the VirtualBox interface doesn't tell you. The experience is completely different from what you'll get with Parallels Desktop, where the app effortlessly installs Windows for you. I'll give you an idea of what you're in for if you want to install and run Windows 11 in VirtualBox. How to Install VirtualBox Part I: It's Not Easy In contrast, Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion support DirectX 11. Keep in mind that if you want to run a Windows game under VirtualBox, you'll be limited to DirectX 8/9 support. If you're reading this, you probably want to run Windows under VirtualBox, and that's what I'll focus on in the rest of this review. It does its best running Linux and Windows, and does its worst with macOS guests, where it offers slow performance and limited features compared with Parallels and VMware. VirtualBox can create what it calls "guest machines" that emulate almost any common Intel-based operating system, including Windows, Linux, macOS, and others. But VirtualBox merely displays a clunky-looking menu, with an unhelpful cartoon picture of a penguin with a toolbox, and leaves you to figure out what to do next. Parallels even gives you download links for Windows and open-source systems. Both guide you through the steps needed to create a new virtual machine. Then you must restart and run VirtualBox again.īy contrast, rival apps Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion have different setup systems. The installer sends you to the Apple System Preferences app to grant permission to a VirtualBox extension that lets your guest Windows system exchange data with your host Mac system. Next, you run the installer package from the downloaded disk image.
To get the app, you download the installation disk image from.
VirtualBox's code is maintained by Oracle, hence the complete name Oracle VM VirtualBox. I'll list some alternative methods for running Windows apps on Apple Silicon at the end of this review. If you have an Apple Silicon Mac, don't even think about using VirtualBox, because it won't run at all on an M1-based Mac, not even with Apple's Rosetta 2 translation layer that makes many Intel-based apps run on Apple Silicon.
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