1 Introduction
1.5 Supported guest operating systems
Since VirtualBox is designed to provide a generic virtualization environment for x86
systems, it may run operating systems of any kind, even those that are not officially
supported by Sun Microsystems. However, our focus is to optimize the product’s per-
formance for a select list of guest systems:
Windows NT 4.0 All versions/editions and service packs are fully supported; how-
ever, there are some issues with older service packs. We recommend to install
service pack 6a. Guest Additions are available with a limited feature set.
Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008 / Windows 7 beta All ver-
sions/editions and service packs are fully supported (including 64-bit versions,
under the preconditions listed below). Guest Additions are available.
DOS / Windows 3.x / 95 / 98 / ME Limited testing has been performed. Use beyond
legacyinstallation mechanisms not recommended. NoGuest Additions available.
Linux 2.4 Limited support.
Linux 2.6 All versions/editions are fully supported (32 bits and 64 bits). GuestAddi-
tions are available.
Westrongly recommend using a Linux kernel version 2.6.13 or higher for better
performance.
Note: Certain Linux kernel releases have bugs that prevent them from exe-
cuting in a virtual environment; please see chapter 11.3.3,Buggy Linux 2.6
kernel versions, page 148 for details.
Solaris 10, OpenSolaris Fully supported (32 bits and 64 bits). Guest Additions are
available.
FreeBSD Limited support. Guest Additions are not available yet.
OpenBSD Versions 3.7 and later are supported. Guest Additions are not available
yet.
OS/2 Warp4.5 Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. We officially support
MCP2 only; other OS/2 versions may or may not work. Guest Additions are
available with a limited feature set.6
6Seechapter 13,Known limitations, page 213.
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