Sun VirtualBox Makes Virtualization on Mac Free
11:12 pm, May 10th, 2009, Pete Mortensen

Months ago, I wrote about my wrestling match to get the 64-Bit Windows 7 Public Beta installed on my MacBook. It took all day, and then, well, I had a copy of Windows on my computer that required a reboot to access. It was, as it turns out, every bit as pointless as many commenters accused my activity of being. I deleted my partition and never really gave it a second thought — even though I could use a Windows install to debug stuff for work.
Until today, that is, when Sun blogger The Fat Bloke provided detailed instructions for installing the most recent revision of the WIndows 7 Release Candidate on VirtualBox, the company’s totally free virtualization system. And I have to say, it works like a charm. I was up and running within about two hours, and I didn’t even need to follow the secondary instructions about Vista mode or whatever. If you’re curious at all, it’s absolutely the best way to get a Windows installation on your Mac for free.
Whether it’s useful remains to be seen. I might find myself deleting this next Sunday.
Posted by Pete Mortensen in Software, Windows on Mac | Comment on this article












The real question is whether Oracle will keep Virtual Box alive.
Darcy McGee, on May 11th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Windows 7 is interesting for about 5 minutes. It’s just Vista with a simpler interface. It really should be Vista SP2 given all the issues people have had with Vista.
Terry, on May 11th, 2009 at 9:14 am
>> it’s absolutely the best way to get a Windows installation on your Mac for free
Cool, I didn’t realize Windows 7 was going to be free, I had wrongly assumed I’d have to buy a Windows license.
Keith Thomas, on May 11th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Microsoft did with Windows Vista/Windows 7 what they did with Halo 2 and Halo 3.
Frank, on May 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Can I run it on my G4? I haven’t found anything on this.
imajoebob, on May 11th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
I got the new ubuntu release installed and running using virtualbox in less than 30 minutes. I have Windows 7 at work, it’s very irritating. I’ve seen so many comments that it is zippy and a pleasure to use. Whatever. Neither is true, although it could be the hardware’s fault. My preference is not to use any flavor of Windows – and then I can’t figure out what’s so great about Linux, except that it’s free… I wish I could find the definitive guide to why certain OSs are so great…
gswc, on May 12th, 2009 at 5:37 am
windows 7 will not be free. only the current release candidate is and it will expire in june of next year. and no, it will not run on a non-intel mac.
i played around some with virtualbox, and it’s pretty amazing for freeware. however, i think i will continue to pony up for parallels. there were just some things about virtualbox that really annoyed me. i use parallels at work and have had very little trouble with it.
firesign, on May 12th, 2009 at 1:10 pm