VirtualBox 3.2 released

Apart from the kind of obligatory yearly re-branding attempts[1] by the respective new owner, VirtualBox finally comes with some cool new features...

• Latest Intel hardware support
• Large Page support
• In-hypervisor Networking
• New Storage I/O subsystem
• Remote Video Acceleration
• Multiple Virtual Monitors
• Hot-plug CPU's
• Virtual SAS Controller
• Online Snapshot Merging

Details and explanations here, download here.
and, as they guys from ElReg say in their article,

With VirtualBox 3.2 (and no one is ever going to call it Oracle VM VirtualBox, so let's get that straight), the software engineers have tweaked the type 2 (meaning hosted) hypervisor so it can run on all the latest "Westmere" variants of Intel's Core i5 and i7 processors for desktops and the Xeon 5600s for servers and high-end workstations.

VirtualBox 3.2 also sports acceleration for the Remote Data Protocol if you are using a Windows 7 client in a VM, and the hypervisor can emulate an LSI Logic SAS controller for storage as well, which is common in high-end x64 workstations and entry servers and midrange x64 servers.

VirtualBox supports just about any x64 operating system you can imagine: Windows NT all the way back to 4.0 and Windows all the way back to 3.0, plus DOS, OS/2, Linux 2.4 and 2.6, Solaris, and BSD Unix - and now Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.5 and Canonical Ubuntu 10.04 are added to the long list.

So, away with the just-installed v3.1.8 and lets got 3.2...
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[1] Sun Virtualbox, Sun xVM Virtualbox, Oracle VM VirtualBox, ... come to mind

VirtualBox 3.1.8 released

...and I'm already downloading it.

Update for eCard configuration for Oracle's Sun Ray

There's an update for the new Austrian eCards for the Sun Ray[1] Server... the 2010 card... you know, the one that does NOT work properly as a citizen card.

The update can be found and downloaded here on the Sun Ray User Group wiki.


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[1] yes, they are called the Oracle's Sun Ray Clients now.

24 bit RDP under Windows XP

Just recently during (probably my last) Sunray/VDI demo installation I ran into the problem that we could not get 24bit color depth on the virtualized Windows XPs.

The SunRay part of the installation (i.e. the Desktop Unit (DTU, aka. ThinClient) itself could not be the problem, because they always are 24bit (incl their respective X session on the SunRay Server),
we also ran the RDP client (uttsc) with the -A 24 option to force it to 24bit (which it would default to anyway) ... but to no avail.

Of course as always google is your friend; several people have posted and blogged this already: under Windows XP you have to explicitely enable 24bit for RDP. So in the Windows XP image (or template) open the registry and change

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\RDP-Tcp\ColorDepth

to the value 4.
Not sure if you have to reboot the virtual machine (VM) then, but since rebooting a virtualized XP is quite fast anyway, just reboot it...

Sun about to buy Innotek

In case you are into reading corporate press releases (yuck):
Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire innotek, Expanding Sun xVM Reach to the Developer Desktop

There is also - of course - the usually witty El Reg version of it.

Vista consumer virtualization ban lifted

Finally Microsoft gave up and - contrary to what I reported before - now DOES allow all Vista Editions on virtualization platforms:

Microsoft relents: Vista consumer virtualization ban lifted:

"It only took them a year longer than it should have, but Microsoft has finally relented and approved the use of Windows Vista Basic and Premium Edition in virtualized environments, for both 'consumers' and business users. Among other things, the change means that Mac and Linux users can now run Windows Vista in a VM without having to pay for the more expensive Business or Ultimate editions. This is a boon to anyone who needs virtualized environments for testing and development."

No cheap Vista for Desktop Virtualization?

I just got a pointer to this litte know fact (at least I did not know it) from the VMware site:

Microsoft Virtualization Licensing and Distribution Terms - VMware: "Restrictions on Virtualization and Vista:

Microsoft has recently announced a prohibition on virtualizing the less expensive versions of Vista (Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium). Microsoft’s explanation has been that virtualization is not broadly usable by consumers or other mass market users, and therefore should be restricted only to the more expensive versions of Vista"

This means that you cannot use a cheaper version of Vista for desktop virtualization (VDI) ...

And this in return means, that Microsoft is afraid of VDI. That simple.