Installation Details

As installation of Oracle VM VirtualBox varies depending on your host operating system, the following sections provide installation instructions for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Oracle Solaris.

Installing on Windows Hosts

Prerequisites

For the various versions of Windows that are supported as host operating systems, please refer to Section 1.4, "Supported Host Operating Systems".

In addition, Windows Installer must be present on your system. This should be the case for all supported Windows platforms.

Performing the Installation

The Oracle VM VirtualBox installation can be started in either of the following ways:

By double-clicking on the executable file.
By entering the following command:
```
VirtualBox-<version>-<revision>-Win.exe -extract
```
This will extract the installer into a temporary directory, along with the .MSI file. Run the following command to perform the installation:
```
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-<revision>-Win.msi
```

Using either way displays the installation Welcome dialog and enables you to choose where to install Oracle VM VirtualBox, and which components to install. In addition to the Oracle VM VirtualBox application, the following components are available:

USB support. This package contains special drivers for your Windows host that Oracle VM VirtualBox requires to fully support USB devices inside your virtual machines.
Networking. This package contains extra networking drivers for your Windows host that Oracle VM VirtualBox needs to support Bridged Networking. This enables your VM's virtual network cards to be accessed from other machines on your physical network.
Python support. This package contains Python scripting support for the Oracle VM VirtualBox API, see Chapter 11, Oracle VM VirtualBox Programming Interfaces. For this to work, an already working Windows Python installation on the system is required.
See, for example: http://www.python.org/download/windows/.

Note

Python version at least 2.6 is required. Python 3 is also supported.

Depending on your Windows configuration, you may see warnings about unsigned drivers, or similar. Click Continue for these warnings, as otherwise Oracle VM VirtualBox might not function correctly after installation.

The installer will create an Oracle VM VirtualBox group in the Windows Start menu, which enables you to launch the application and access its documentation.

With standard settings, Oracle VM VirtualBox will be installed for all users on the local system. If this is not wanted, you must invoke the installer by first extracting as follows:

VirtualBox.exe -extract

Then, run either of the following commands on the extracted .MSI file. This will install Oracle VM VirtualBox only for the current user.

VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ALLUSERS=2

msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-Win.msi ALLUSERS=2

If you do not want to install all features of Oracle VM VirtualBox, you can set the optional ADDLOCAL parameter to explicitly name the features to be installed. The following features are available:

VBoxApplication: Main binaries of Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Note

This feature must not be absent, since it contains the minimum set of files to have working Oracle VM VirtualBox installation.
VBoxUSB: USB support.
VBoxNetwork: All networking support. This includes the VBoxNetworkFlt and VBoxNetworkAdp features.
VBoxNetworkFlt: Bridged networking support.
VBoxNetworkAdp: Host-only networking support
VBoxPython: Python support

For example, to only install USB support along with the main binaries, run either of the following commands:

VirtualBox.exe -msiparams ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB

msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-Win.msi ADDLOCAL=VBoxApplication,VBoxUSB

The user is able to choose between NDIS5 and NDIS6 host network filter drivers during the installation. This is done using a command line parameter, NETWORKTYPE. The NDIS6 driver is the default for most supported Windows hosts. For some legacy Windows versions, the installer will automatically select the NDIS5 driver and this cannot be changed.

You can force an install of the legacy NDIS5 host network filter driver by specifying NETWORKTYPE=NDIS5. For example, to install the NDIS5 driver on Windows 7 use either of the following commands:

VirtualBox.exe -msiparams NETWORKTYPE=NDIS5

msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-Win;.msi NETWORKTYPE=NDIS5

Uninstallation

As Oracle VM VirtualBox uses the standard Microsoft Windows installer, Oracle VM VirtualBox can be safely uninstalled at any time. Click the program entry in the Add/Remove Programs list in the Windows Control Panel.

Unattended Installation

Unattended installations can be performed using the standard MSI support.

Public Properties

Public properties can be specified with the MSI API, to control additional behavior and features of the Windows host installer. Use either of the following commands:

VirtualBox.exe -msiparams NAME=VALUE [...]

msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-Win.msi NAME=VALUE [...]

The following public properties are available.

VBOX_INSTALLDESKTOPSHORTCUT
Specifies whether or not an Oracle VM VirtualBox icon on the desktop should be created.
Set to 1 to enable, 0 to disable. Default is 1.
VBOX_INSTALLQUICKLAUNCHSHORTCUT
Specifies whether or not an Oracle VM VirtualBox icon in the Quick Launch Bar should be created.
Set to 1 to enable, 0 to disable. Default is 1.
VBOX_REGISTERFILEEXTENSIONS
Specifies whether or not the file extensions .vbox, .vbox-extpack, .ovf, .ova, .vdi, .vmdk, .vhd and .vdd should be associated with Oracle VM VirtualBox. Files of these types then will be opened with Oracle VM VirtualBox.
Set to 1 to enable, 0 to disable. Default is 1.
VBOX_START
Specifies whether to start Oracle VM VirtualBox right after successful installation.
Set to 1 to enable, 0 to disable. Default is 1.