[vbox-dev] VirtualBox 3.0 Beta 2 released

[Frank Mehnert]

Please do not use this VirtualBox Beta release on production machines.
A VirtualBox Beta release should be considered a bleeding-edge release
meant for early evaluation and testing purposes.

You can download the binaries here:

  http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0_BETA2/

Please do NOT open bug reports at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
but use our 'VirtualBox Beta Feedback' forum at

  http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewforum.php?f=15

to report any problems with the Beta.

Changes since Beta 1: (regressions and fixes for new features only;
additional fixes below):
 * High CPU usage with certain idle Windows guests (e.g. XP SP2)
 * Performance improvements for SMP guests
 * Reset issues with SMP guests
 * Windows 7 x64 boot problems with SMP
 * Windows 7 shutdown hangs with SMP
 * Hanging VM when unmounting an ISO with SMP guests
 * Several OpenGL & Direct3D related fixes

Version 3.0 will be a major update. The following major new features
were added:
 * Guest SMP with up to 32 virtual CPUs (VT-x and AMD-V only)
 * Windows guests: ability to use Direct3D 8/9 applications /
   games (experimental)
 * Support for OpenGL 2.0 for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:
 * Solaris hosts: allow suspend/resume on the host when a VM is running
   (bug #3826)
 * Solaris hosts: tighten the restriction for contiguous physical memory
   under certain conditions
 * Mac OS X hosts: fixed guest PAE
 * Linux hosts: kernel module compile fixes for 2.6.31 (bug #4264)
 * VMM: fixed occassional guru meditation when loading a saved state
   (VT-x only)
 * VMM: eliminated IO-APIC overhead with 32 bits guests (VT-x only, some
   Intel CPUs don’t support this feature (most do); bug #638)
 * VMM: fixed 64 bits CentOS guest hangs during early boot (AMD-V only;
   bug #3927)
 * VMM: performance improvements for certain PAE guests (e.g. Linux 2.6.29+
   kernels)
 * VMM: some Windows guests detected a completely wrong CPU frequency
   (bug #2227)
 * VMM: fixed hanging and unkillable VM processes (bug #4040)
 * GUI: added mini toolbar for fullscreen and seamless mode
   (Thanks to Huihong Luo)
 * GUI: redesigned settings dialogs
 * GUI: allow to create/remove one host-only network adapters
 * GUI: allow to create/remove more than one host-only network adapters
   (non Windows hosts)
 * GUI: display estimated time for long running operations (e.g. OVF
   import/export)
 * GUI: Fixed rare hangs when open the OVF import/export wizards (bug #4157)
 * 3D support: fixed VM crashes for client apps using incorrect opengl states
 * VRDP: support Windows 7 RDP client
 * Networking: fixed another problem with TX checksum offloading with Linux
   kernels up to version 2.6.18
 * NAT: allow to configure socket and internal parameters
 * VHD: properly write empty sectors when cloning of VHD images (bug #4080)
 * VHD: fixed crash when discarding snapshots of a VHD image
 * VHD: fixed access beyond the block bitmap which could lead to arbitrary
   crashes
 * VBoxManage: fixed incorrect partition table processing when creating VMDK
   files giving raw partition access (bug #3510)
 * OVF: several OVF 1.0 compatibility fixes
 * Virtual mouse device: eliminated micro-movements of the virtual mouse which
   were confusing some applications (bug #3782)
 * Shared Folders: sometimes a file was created using the wrong permissions
   (2.2.0 regression; bug #3785)
 * Shared Folders: allow to change file attributes from Linux guests and use
   the correct file mode when creating files
 * Shared Folders: some content was incorrectly written under certain
   conditions (bug #1187)
 * Shared Folders: fixed incorrect file timestamps, when using Windows guest on
   a Linux host (bug #3404)
 * X11 guests: a number of shared clipboard fixes
 * Linux guests: Guest Additions support for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11
 * Linux guests: new daemon vboxadd-service to handle time syncronization and
   guest property lookup
 * Linux guests: implemented guest properties (OS info, logged in users, basic
   network information)
 * Windows host installer: VirtualBox Python API can now be installed
   automatically (requires Python and Win32 Extensions installed)
 * USB: Support for high-speed isochronous endpoints has been added. In
   addition, read-ahead buffering is performed for input endpoints (currently
   Linux hosts only). This should allow additional devices to work, notably
   webcams
 * Web service: fixed inability to handle NULL pointers for object arguments,
   which are valid values for a lot of APIs, in both the raw and the object-
   oriented web service.
 * Web service: object-oriented bindings for JAX-WS did not exhibit interface
   inheritance correctly, fixed
 * Web service: added support for IDisplay and IGuest interfaces, which were
   previously unavailable
 * Registration dialog uses Sun Online accounts now

Kind regards,

Frank
-- 
Dr.-Ing. Frank Mehnert

Sitz der Gesellschaft:
Sun Microsystems GmbH, Sonnenallee 1, 85551 Kirchheim-Heimstetten
Amtsgericht München: HRB 161028
Geschäftsführer: Thomas Schröder, Wolfgang Engels, Wolf Frenkel
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrates: Martin Häring
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