VirtualBox, an open source x86 virtualization project available for free has just hit version 3.0.12. The new version, a 62.9 megabyte download, sports the following fixes and changes:
– VMM: reduced IO-APIC overhead for 32 bits Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 guests; requires 64 bits support (VT-x only; bug #4392).
– VMM: fixed double timer interrupt delivery on old Linux kernels using IO-APIC (caused guest time to run at double speed; bug #3135).
– VMM: reinitialize VT-x and AMD-V after host suspend or hibernate; some BIOSes forget this (Windows hosts only; bug #5421).
– VMM: fix loading of saved state when RAM preallocation is enabled.
– BIOS: ignore unknown shutdown codes instead of causing a guru meditation (bug #5389).
– GUI: never start a VM on a single click into the selector window (bug #2676).
– Serial: reduce the probability of lost bytes if the host end is connected to a raw file.
– VMDK: fix handling of split image variants and fix a 3.0.10 regression (bug #5355).
– VRDP: fixed occasional VRDP server crash.
– Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, some guests were able to send / receive packets (E1000; bug #5366).
– Network: even if the virtual network cable was disconnected, the PCNet card received some spurious packets which might confuse the guest (bug #4496).
– Shared folders: fixed changing case of file names (bug #2520).
– Windows Additions: fix crash in seamless mode (contributed by Huihong Luo).
– Linux Additions: fix writing to files opened in O_APPEND mode (bug #3805).
– Solaris Additions: fix regression in guest additions driver which among other things caused lost guest property updates and periodic error messages being written to the system log.
VirtualBox 3.0.12 is available for free and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.