Windows 7 Software Compatibility Testing - VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a virtualization software developed by Sun Microsystems since February 2008 when they bought innotek (the original German developing company). Through this application you can install additional operating systems, known as "guest operating systems”, system within another called "host", each with its own virtual environment. For example, one could install different Linux distributions installed on a VirtualBox under Windows XP or vice versa.

Although the only mention of Windows 7 support in VirtualBox's official site is about Seven being guest, today I'm going to test it the other way, this are the results:

Installation & Run
Setup process presented no inconvenience, it was also easy and quick. It did not only work fine but also occupied very little space in my HDD.

With just a few options to choose from such as the location for the program folder and a couple of additional features like USB support, the installation ended successfully.

After finishing the setup process VirtualBox started and was ready to work, I was asked to enter my name and e-mail to register the product.

Immediately after that it displayed the welcome notice with a brief description of the interface, what to do to get started and how to get some help.

Summing it up, installation and first run were successfully achieved, and there was not the slightest sign of bugs or malfunctions.

Functionality & Integration
In order to test the way VirtualBox works and interacts under the Windows 7 environment, I created a new virtual machine for Ubuntu operative system. For that I followed the instructions of the wizard, simple, easy and straight forward.

First of all I was asked to select the OS type, there were so many options.

The second step was to select the amount of RAM to be allocated to the new virtual machine. I selected the recommended size which was 384MB.

After that I was prompted to create a new virtual disk and for that I had to select the HDD storage type. I did so and the wizard let me to select folder location and so on.

The last step was a summary of all the actions to be taken.

Clicking the "Finnish" button took me back to the main window where I could see all the variables for the new virtual machine.

The "Start" button (big green arrow) started the newly created virtual machine and a few seconds before Ubuntu was being installed.

Ubuntu installation process took no longer than 20 minutes and surprisingly it did not cause any performance slow-down, so, I could go on doing my activities normally while it continued in the background. As a matter of fact I was writing part of this article as well as taking some screenshots during this time.

In order to test the functionality in depth I opened BrotheSoft's site with Firefox, and to my complete surprise it opened as if Ubuntu was the native operating system. No need to install any driver or to configure anything. Couldn't ask for more!!

Bugs Report
Regarding bugs, I could not find any by myself during this testing, nor could I find any post or comment on the Web or specialized forums regarding the use of VirtualBox under Windows 7 being Seven the host operating system, apparently most users run Windows 7 as a guest on VirtualBox under other host OSs. However, the point is that there are no bugs or malfunctions reported for I tested today.

Final Words
As you can see, this solid piece of freeware works efficiently under Microsoft's newest operating system, and as far as I could test it delivers what it promises.

We are waiting for your comments and opinions about this matter.