Tag Archives: Guest

[Win] Oracle VirtualBox: Workaround For Initialization Issue Pt. II

Find our previously released workaround for initialization issues here.

CPU VT-X/AMD-V Issue

After configuring a dual core virtual machine and trying to start you may encounter a message box indicating:

  • Hyper-V launch failed; Either VMX not present or not enabled in BIOS.
  • Hyper-V launch failed; at least one of the processors in the system does not appear to provide a virtualization platform supported by Hyper-V.

This issue may occur no matter which host operating system you’re using. The reason for this might be:

  • you’re not using a CPU that supports hardware virtualization
  • your BIOS does not support hardware virtualization properly
  • hardware virtualization is disabled in your BIOS settings (check it!)
  • there is a bug in your current BIOS version
  • the trusted execution flag prevents booting properly

Known Workarounds

Try these settings in your BIOS:

  • Enable Execute Disable bit (depending on the motherboard manufacturer this can be called: XD-Bit, EDB, NX-Bit, AMD EVP)
  • Enable Virtualization bit (depending on the mobo manuf. this can be called: VT, IVT, AMD-V)
  • Enable VT for Direct I/O Access (depending on the mobo manuf. this can be called: VT-d based I/O)
  • Disable Trusted Execution Technology (depending on the mobo manuf. this can be called: Intel TXT, TET)

Of course, upgrading your BIOS to the latest version can also be of help, but flashing the BIOS is always a little risky.

Final Words

As we’re currently using VirtualBox only on the Windows XP platform we categorized this article under Win, anyway it is very likely that the same issue also occurs under Linux or Mac OS, as VirtualBox on all platforms derives from the same source code.

The above settings apply for example for installing MacOS SnowLeopard in a VM under Windows 7 on Gigabyte EP35-DS3 or Dell Optiplex 745/755.

[MacOS] VirtualBox 3.2 To Support Mac OS Guest on Windows Host [Update]

We suppose Apple will not like that, but Oracle’s latest version of VirtualBox 3.2 Beta 1 now supports virtualization of Apple’s Mac OS X.

Legal View

Although Apple’s license agreement clearly prohibits installing Mac OS X on other hardware than Apple’s, the screenshot shows that even the Windows version of Mac OS X is prepped to run Mac OS X as guest operating system.

On the other hand Apple’s license agreement is not valid in all countries. It cannot be applied in Germany and some other countries for example.

Technical View

To satisfy Apple’s Aqua binary encryption it is required to supply two operating system decryption keys (OSK0 and OSK1) to the kernel extension “Dont Steal Mac OS X.kext”. Although it is no secret that Mac OS can be run on PC hardware using decryption emulators like netkas’ fakesmc.kext, anyhow at the moment it is unclear if Oracle integrated those operating system decryption keys into VirtualBox.

[Update]

VirtualBox does not circumvent Apple’s binary protection. A VirtualBox developer confirmed, that Apple hardware is required in order to run Mac OS as guest in VirtualBox. So without tempering either with VirtualBox’ EFI or with Mac OS X it is not possible to run OS X in VirtualBox on a PC.

On the other hand a closer look at the EFI booter integrated in VirtualBox could reveal either how to modify PC Bios‘ to boot Mac OS X DVDs natively or how to expand our beloved Chameleon.

[MacOS] MacOS X as Guest OS on Parallels Server

Today Parallels released the server version of their virtualization software. The MacOS X version supports MacOS X server as guest operating system. The Linux and Windows versions will be released within the next six weeks, but they will not virtualize MacOS X – as Apple demanded. The price is currently set to 860€.