Oracle has announced VirtualBox 4.0.0 Beta 1 after having just announced VirtualBox 3.2.12.
As of version 4.0, VirtualBox introduces the Extension Pack mechanism which allows Oracle and 3rd parties to deliver additional functionality on top of the standard Open Source product. The Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack, adds support for USB 2.0, RDP server and the PXE bootloader with E1000 support.
You can download this Pack from the same location and install it via the VirtualBox Global Settings using the Extensions pane.
Version 4.0.0 will be new major release. The following major new features were added:
- New settings/disk file layout for VM portability; see the manual for more information.
- Open Virtualization Format Archive (OVA) support; see the manual for more information.
- VMM: support more than 1.5/2 GB guest RAM on 32-bit hosts
- Language bindings: uniform Java bindings for both local (COM/XPCOM) and remote (SOAP) invocation APIs
- Chipset: added support for the Intel ICH9 chipset with 3 PCI buses, PCI express and Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI)
- Audio: Intel HD Audio is now available as guest hardware, for better support with modern guest operating systems (e.g. 64-bit Windows; bug #2785).
- GUI: redesigned user interface with guest window preview
- GUI: new display mode with downscaled guest display
- Resource control: added support for limiting a VM's CPU time and IO bandwidth.
- Storage: support asynchronous I/O for iSCSI, VMDK, VHD and Parallels images
- Storage: support for resizing VDI and VHD images
- Windows Additions: support for automatically updating the Guest Additions (requires installed Windows Guest Additions 4.0 or later)
- Guest Additions: support for copying files into the guest file system
You can download the binaries here.