Virtual Box for Windows 2.1.2 Released

After a month or so of waiting for problems with the last revision to be addressed, Sun released the latest version of their virtualizing software to run on a computer running Windows as the base operating system.

Though the product is by no means as full featured as Parallels, it beats the price hands down. It is free. Moreover, there is also a revision for 64bit processors, which allows the constrictions of memory usage to be loosed. Not having used Virtual PC 2007 from Microsoft, I have to rely on the experiences of others. In the ratings on Betanews (not scientific or decisive by any means) the responders all stated that the Sun product beats the Microsoft product due to fewer limitations, and the ability to allow more peripherals to work correctly. Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 is also free.

It seems as though the Sun product is evolving, not only due to the need to repair bugs, but to answer the needs of the community. The development of the Microsoft product seems to be stalled permanently.

This latest product can be downloaded at Sun directly, or from Betanews, which also has both versions available.

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.

Open source – thumbs up !

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