对于VMWare、Virtual PC这些虚拟机软件，可能大家都比较熟悉。VirtualBox是德国一家软件公司InnoTek所开发的虚拟系统软件，它不仅具有丰富的特色，而且性能 也很优异。更是开源的，成为了一个发布在GPL许可之下的自由软件。VirtualBox 可以在 Linux 和 Windows 主机中运行，并支持在其中安装 Windows (NT 4.0、2000、XP、Server 2003、Vista)、DOS/Windows 3.x、Linux (2.4 和 2.6)、OpenBSD 等系列的客户操作系统。假如你曾经有用过虚拟机软件的经历的话，相信使用 VirtualBox 不在话下。即便你是一个新手，也没有关系。VirtualBox 提供了详细的文档，可以助你在短期内入门。
VirtualBox 2.0.4 (released 2008-10-24) 更新：
This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:
VMM: better error reporting for VT-x failures
VMM: don’t over?ow the release log with PATM messages (bug #1775)
VMM: ?xed save state restore in real mode (software virtualization only)
GUI: work around a Qt bug on Mac OS X (bug #2321)
GUI: properly install the Qt4 accessible plugin (bug #629)
SATA: error message when starting a VM with a VMDK connected to a SATA port (bug #2182)
SATA: ?xed Guru mediation when booting OpenSolaris/64; most likely applies to other guests as well (bug #2292)
Network: don’t crash when changing the adapter link state if no host driver is attached (bug #2333)
VHD: ?xed bug which prevents booting from VHD images bigger than 4GB (bug #2085)
VRDP: ?xed a repaint problem when the guest resolution was not equal to the client resolution
Clipboard: don’t crash when host service initialization takes longer than expected (Linux hosts only; bug #2001)
Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe crash (bug #2212)
Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe memory leak due to a Windows WMI memory leak (Vista only) (bug #2242)
Windows hosts: VBoxSVC.exe delays GUI startup
Linux hosts: handle jif?es counter over?ow (VM stuck after 300 seconds of host uptime; bug #2247)
Solaris hosts: ?xed host or guest side networking going stale while using host interface networking (bug #2474)
Solaris hosts: added support for using unplumbed network interfaces and Crossbow Virtual Network Interfaces (VNICs) with host interface networking
Solaris hosts: reworked threading model improves performance for host interface networking
Windows additions: ?xed crash when accessing deep directory structures in a shared folder
Windows additions: improved shared folder name resolving (bug #1728)
Windows additions: ?xed Windows 2000 shutdown crash (bug #2254)
Windows additions: ?xed error code for MoveFile() if the target exists (bug #2350)
Linux additions: ?xed seek() for ?les bigger than 2GB (bug #2379)
Linux additions: support Ubuntu 8.10
Linux additions: clipboard ?xes (bug #2015)
Web services: improved documentation and ?xed example (bug #1642)
