Wednesday, June 11, 2014

How To Install VirtualBox

For the various versions of Windows that we support as host operating systems, please refer to Section 1.4, “Supported host operating systems”.
In addition, Windows Installer 1.1 or higher must be present on your system. This should be the case if you have all recent Windows updates installed.

2.1.2. Performing the installation

The VirtualBox installation can be started
  • either by double-clicking on its executable file (contains both 32- and 64-bit architectures)
  • or by entering
    VirtualBox.exe -extract
    on the command line. This will extract both installers into a temporary directory in which you'll then find the usual .MSI files. Then you can do a
    msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi
    to perform the installation.
In either case, this will display the installation welcome dialog and allow you to choose where to install VirtualBox to and which components to install. In addition to the VirtualBox application, the following components are available:
USB support
This package contains special drivers for your Windows host that VirtualBox requires to fully support USB devices inside your virtual machines.
Networking
This package contains extra networking drivers for your Windows host that VirtualBox needs to support Bridged Networking (to make your VM's virtual network cards accessible from other machines on your physical network).
Python Support
This package contains Python scripting support for the VirtualBox API (see Chapter 11, VirtualBox programming interfaces). For this to work, an already working Windows Python installation on the system is required.
Depending on your Windows configuration, you may see warnings about "unsigned drivers" or similar. Please select "Continue" on these warnings as otherwise VirtualBox might not function correctly after installation.
The installer will create a "VirtualBox" group in the Windows "Start" menu which allows you to launch the application and access its documentation.
With standard settings, VirtualBox will be installed for all users on the local system. In case this is not wanted, you have to invoke the installer by first extracting it by using
VirtualBox.exe -extract
and then do as follows:
VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ALLUSERS=2
or
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi ALLUSERS=2
on the extracted .MSI files. This will install VirtualBox only for the current user.
If you do not want to install all features of VirtualBox, you can set the optional ADDLOCAL parameter to explicitly name the features to be installed. The following features are available Christmas Photos:
VBoxApplication
Main binaries of VirtualBox.

Note

This feature must not be absent since it contains the minimum set of files to have working VirtualBox installation.
VBoxUSB
USB support.
VBoxNetwork
All networking support; includes the VBoxNetworkFlt and VBoxNetworkAdp features (see below).
VBoxNetworkFlt
Bridged networking support.
VBoxNetworkAdp
Host-only networking support.
VBoxPython
Python support.
For example, to only install USB support along with the main binaries, do a:
VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB
or
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB