Table of Contents
As installation of VirtualBox varies depending on your host operating system, we provide installation instructions in four separate chapters for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris, respectively.
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.
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-<version>-<revision>-Win.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>-<revision>-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.
Note
Python version ≥ 2.6 is required. Since VirtualBox 5.1 Python 3 is also supported.
[8]
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:
- 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.
Note
Python version ≥ 2.6 is required. Since VirtualBox 5.1 Python 3 is also supported.
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
The user is able to choose between NDIS5 and NDIS6 host network filters drivers during
the installation. This is realized via a command line parameter
NETWORKTYPE.
The NDIS6 driver is default for Windows Vista and later. For older Windows versions,
the installer will automatically select the NDIS5 driver and this cannot be changed.
For Windows Vista and later the user can force to install the (legacy) NDIS5 host
network filter driver using NETWORKTYPE=NDIS5. For
example, to install the NDIS5 driver on Windows 7, do
VirtualBox.exe -msiparams NETWORKTYPE=NDIS5
or
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi NETWORKTYPE=NDIS5
As VirtualBox uses the standard Microsoft Windows installer, VirtualBox can be safely uninstalled at any time by choosing the program entry in the "Add/Remove Programs" applet in the Windows Control Panel.
Unattended installations can be performed using the standard MSI support.
The following public properties can be specified via MSI API,
VirtualBox.exe -msiparams NAME=VALUE [...]
or
msiexec /i VirtualBox-<version>-MultiArch_<x86|amd64>.msi NAME=VALUE [...]
to control additional behavior and/or features of the Windows host installer:
- VBOX_INSTALLDESKTOPSHORTCUT
-
Specifies whether or not a VirtualBox icon on the desktop should be created.
Set to
1to enable,0to disable. Default is 1. - VBOX_INSTALLQUICKLAUNCHSHORTCUT
-
Specifies whether or not a VirtualBox icon in the Quick Launch Bar should be created.
Set to
1to enable,0to disable. Default is 1. - VBOX_REGISTERFILEEXTENSIONS
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Specifies whether or not the file extensions .vbox, .vbox-extpack, .ovf, .ova, .vdi, .vmdk, .vhd and .vdd should be associated with VirtualBox. Files of these types then will be opened with VirtualBox.
Set to
1to enable,0to disable. Default is 1. - VBOX_START
-
Specifies whether or not VirtualBox should be started right after successful installation.
Set to
1to enable,0to disable. Default is 1.
[8] See, for example, http://www.python.org/download/windows/.