General bugs and suggestions from Mac Beta

[newhere123]

All my experience with this program has been with Beta 1 on Mac, running Windows XP as a host, so keep that in mind.

Bug: If a virtual machine is running when power goes out on the Mac, the virtual machine (Windows) gets REALLY messed up. Virtual machines should be protected from power outs.

Bug: When in full screen mode, the mouse doesn't click at the top of the screen (where the apple menu bar would be).

Bug: The Mouse integration is not there yet; You have to click to get the functionality of the other OS.

Bug: When I first tried installing the additional guest tools, it wouldn't work. I had to unmount and remount the cd drive, or mount the guest installation iso, or something, before it would work.

Bug: After you click on an option from the VirtualBox's menus, the tip at the bottom of the window (which says what that menu button does) remains.

Bug: USB doesn't really work well. When I plug in a USB drive, I want VirtualBox ask if it should mount in Windows or Mac. Don't forget about support with Mac 10.4.10 update and OS 10.5.X Leopard.

Bug: Transparency (alpha) on the Windows desktop (like for the shadows in icons) doesn't work; it just shows up as black.

Bug: There is no option to change the shortcut keys needed to make the keyboard/mouse stay exit the virtual machine (it is still Apple+-->).

Suggestion: Merge the virtual guest and virtual box window (flip between them for using one or the other). Make it so there can be a shortcut to open and run (with one click) a specific guest OS.

Suggestion: Make guest OS compatible with (or at least transferable from) BootCamp partition, and with VMware and Parallels virtual hard disks.

Suggestion: Make the virtual box logo (when powering on virtual machine) look nicer and smoother.

Suggestion: Get 3D support.

Suggestion: Try to make something like Parallels's Coherence (view guest OS windows on host OS without guest OS background. And make it so that you can open a .doc file (for example) from Mac and have Word (for example) open in VirtualBox.

Suggestion: If there are any free anti-spyware, anti-virus, and/or firewall tools out there, have them installable from a button next to the install guest additions button in the menu.

Suggestion: Speed up the program and the virtualization of Windows (or other guest os).

Suggestion: Have a Check for Updates option in the menu.

[newhere123]

Also, there should be an active sleep option when I go to the Windows shut down window which pauses the virtual machine.

BTW: This program (and I mean the interface) seems very similar to Parallels of several months ago, except the only differences seem to be better in Parallels than VirtualBox. I'm sure that you could think of a more user-friendly interface, like putting more options and virtual hardware options around the OS Window, instead of only in the menus. (A good interface makes a good program.) I could probable put some more thought into it and suggest an intuitive, aesthetic, and efficient interface which puts Parallels in the dust, but I'm sure you have designers for that.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

Several of your bug reports and suggestions are either obsolete, not relevant or not even useful. Select something that others haven't reported before and then create a defect. And seperate the bug reports from the suggestions.

Complaining about our GUI in this way isn't very constructive either.

[Sander van Leeuwen]

Obsolete.