Ok, this is a precaution if you have installed XP Mode (Virtual Windows XP) and VirtualBox on Windows 7 x64 RC. I was testing XP Mode and I wanted to do a side by side comparison and guess what. BSOD!

My workstation is a Core i7 machine that I built myself. It’s running the latest Windows 7 x64 RC. The VirtualBox version is 2.2.2 which is the latest at the time of this writing. Further diagnostic shows that it’s probably caused by ntkrnlmp.exe. The file is part of the Windows 7 kernel.

There is no fix for the problem now, but I found that both programs still run fine. Just do not run them at the same time.

Do you experience the same problem with 32bit Windows 7 RC? Please share your experience.

I was testing the networking under VirtualBox 2.2 environment. By default, the network adapter is set to NAT. The adapter gets an intranet IP and the host computer serves as a rounter. This works fine without any additional configuration. The problem is you cannot use VPN for it.

In order to use VPN, you have to set up the network adapter to attach to a  bridged network. In this configuration, your virtual machine is like attached to the Internet directly. The VituralBox user manual 6.5 has some details about this.

When I tried to use the bridged network, I found that it’s not working for me. The option to select the network adapter is not available. I found a post about a similar problem and the fix is just to uninstall VirtualBox and re-install it again. This approach did not work for me because I cannot uninstall VirtualBox.

So, I ran the installer one more time and choose to Repair the installation. Luckily, it worked this time. After I rebooted the machine, I was able to choose the network adapter as the bridged network.

Ubuntu 9.04 is  released today. If you want to try it without buying a new machine or partitioning your hard drive, VirtualBox is a good choice. This guide assumes you have downloaded the Ubuntu 9.04 iso and you also have installed VirtualBox 2.2 or above. You also need enough disk space to hold the virtual disk on your hard drive.

1. Run VirtualBox and Click on New to create a new virtual machine.
   
2. Click on Next to continue.
   
   
3. Name your virtual machine and select the proper OS Type. Click on Next to continue.
   
   
4. The default RAM is 384 MB which is enough for Ubuntu. Click on Next to continue.
   
   
5. Click on Next to create a new virtual disk.
   
   
6. Create New Virtual Disk Wizard starts, click on Next to continue.
   
   
7. Select Dynamically expanding storage and click on Next to continue.
   
   
8. Specify a location for the disk image and size. If your system drive is low on space, you might want to use a different drive. Click on Next to continue.
   
   
9. Click on Finish to finish creating a new virtual disk.
   
   
10. Click on Finish to finish creating of the new virtual machine.
    
    
11. Now back to the main windows of VirtualBox with the newly created virtual machine for Ubuntu. Double click on CD/DVD-ROM. Note that a lot of features are turned off by default. If you want to change the settings, click on Settings to modify them.
    
12. Check Mount CD/DVD Drive and select ISO Image File. Click on the folder icon.
    
13. Click on the Add icon to locate the iso image you downloaded. Click on Select and you will be brought back to the dialog in previous step. Click on OK.
    
14. Click on Start icon in the upper left corner to start installation.
    
15. Click anywhere inside the virtual machine window, so that you can use your keyboard and mouse inside the virtual machine. If you ever want to release the mouse and keyboard from the virtual machine, press right Ctrl key. Select the language and press Enter key.
    
16. Select Install Ubuntu using the arrow keys and press Enter key.
    
17. Select the language and click on Forward.
    
18. Select your time zone and click on Forward.
    
19. Select keyboard layout and click on Forward.
    
20. Select Use the entire disk and click on Forward.
    
21. Create a user and click on Forward.
    
22. Click on Install.
    
23. Wait for a few minutes. When it’s done, click on Restart Now.
    
24. When the virtual machine reboots, it boots to the installation media again. Select Boot from first hard disk and press Enter key.
    
25. The basic installation is done. To make it better, we want to install the Guest Additons. You will get a better display driver and you also do not need to press right Ctrl key to swtich between the virtual machine and your host machine. Log on to the system using the account you just created. You can see the Ubuntu installation disc is mounted. Right click on the media and select Unmount Volume.
    
26. Press right Ctrl key to release mouse and keyboard from the virtual machine. Click on Devices on the menu bar and select Unmount CD/DVD-ROM.
    
27. Click on Devices again and select Mount CD/DVD-ROM -> CD/DVD-ROM Image … .
    
28. Select VBoxGuestAdditions.iso and click on Select. If the disc does not show up on the desktop, you might want to do Unmount CD/DVD-ROM again.
    
29. Click on Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal to bring up a terminal window.
    
30. Type the following command.
    sudo /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
    Enter your password to continue.
    
31. Now reboot the virtual machine and enjoy!

Now that I have a fast Core i7 machine, I wanted to try running multiple virtual machines on it. My first choice was the free Virtual PC 2007 from Microsoft. The guest OS of my choice is the popular open source Ubuntu. The combination was not ideal.

When I first tried to install Ubuntu 8.10 using Virtual PC 2007, I got stuck on a garbled screen. I found this page that solves the initial problem and other problems related to Ubuntu 8.10 on VPC 2007. After I finally got everthing working, I was not too happy about the performance even after I turned on hardware virtualization.

The other free virtualization software is Virtual Box. I decided to try it out. The support for Linux is excellent. I didn’t have any issues during installation and there is an add-on program which integrates the host and guest well. What amazes me the most is the performance. When I run Ubuntu under Virtual Box, it doesn’t slow down and the interface is very responsive. I don’t get the sluggish response that I usually get with emulation.

If you are like me who was not impressed by the performance of virtual machines, you might want to give it a second try with Virtual Box.