Changelog for VirtualBox 5.1

This page lists all changes of the VirtualBox 5.1 releases.
All branches: 5.1 · 5.0 · 4.3 · 4.2 · 4.1 · 4.0 · 3.2 · 3.1 · 3.0 · 2.2 · 2.1 · 2.0 · 1.6

For 5.0.26 changes, please go here.

VirtualBox 5.1.2 (released 2016-07-21)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: several fixes
• GUI: fixed screenshot if the VM is started in separate mode
• GUI: fixed issue with double-click/opening registered file types (.vbox and .vbox-extpack) on Mac OS X (bug #15648)
• GUI: fixed a bug which made it impossible close some error/warning messages using the close button
• GUI: weakened the control over the VM window behavior allowing to resize it across multiple screens and to use in Snap Assist techniques
• GUI: jump to the second tab of the session information window (5.1.0 regression)
• GUI: fix for Alt-Tab
• Storage: fixed creating fixed size VHD images (bug #15601)
• Storage: fixed a hang during power off if the VM was suspended before and a NVMe controller is configured
• USB: fixed a crash under certain conditions
• Audio: make AC'97 volume control work again (5.1.0 regression; bug #15598)
• Audio: fixed rare VM hangs when using AC'97 emulation
• Audio: SB16 fixes
• EFI: fixed access to devices attached to SATA port 2 and higher (bug #15607)
• OVA: fix for checking certain signatures
• OVA: fixed MAC address generation for appliances created by VirtualBox (5.1.0 regression; bug #15623)
• API: fixed audio settings handling for older config files (bug #15626)
• API: fixed truncation of USB product/vendor IDs on Linux hosts (5.1.0 regression; bug #15644)
• API: fixed VRDP with authentication (bug #15653)
• API: don't crash if there is no graphics controller configured (bug #15628)
• Linux hosts: fixed EL5 builds (bug #15634)
• non-Windows hosts: fixed a crash during shutdown under rare circumstances (bug #15568)
• Linux Additions: fixed SELinux issue which prevented certain Linux guests to work in 3D mode (bug #15574)
• User Manual: updates

VirtualBox 5.1 (released 2016-07-12)

This is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• VMM: new APIC and I/O APIC implementations that result in significantly improved performance in certain situations (for example with networking, bug #15295)
• VMM: added support for Hyper-V paravirtualized debugging of Windows guests
• VMM: emulate even more MMIO and shadow pagetable exits without going back to user mode
• GUI: overall migration to Qt5 (bug #11775)
• GUI: passive API event listener improving the VM GUI performance and response time
• Audio: added HDA (High Definition Audio) support for newer Linux guests
• Audio: added on-demand timers which should improve the overall performance and reduce the CPU consumption
• Audio: more fine-grained volume control for the AC'97 emulation, which now also takes the master volume control into account
• better support for Python 3

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: activate the x2APIC by default for Linux guests
• VMM: many more fixes
• GUI: the Detach UI action is now a part of the VM Machine menu
• GUI: reworked session information window
• GUI: the new VM wizard now allows to choose the VM location for the VM which is being created
• GUI: fixed location of touch events in unscaled HiDPI mode (bugs #14366, #14367)
• GUI: various bugfixes and internal cleanup
• Storage: use fallocate() or similar if present to speed up creating fixed-sized disk images (bug #5967)
• Storage: implemented NVMHCI-compatible storage controller
• Audio: various bugfixes and infrastructure improvements
• E1000: implemented interrupt throttling for performance improvements
• EFI: many improvements, for example allow to boot from USB
• OVF: improved handling of signed manifests
• API: Windows XP guests and Windows 2003 server guests now default to the E1000 T Server network card
• VBoxSVC: fixed several memory leaks when handling .dmg images
• Installers: ship VBoxBugReport
• Windows hosts: reworked COM proxy (e.g. bug #8298)
• Linux installers: no longer rely on DKMS for module rebuilding
• Linux Additions: fix a problem when updating the initramfs after the guest modules are compiled (bug #15579)
• Linux Additions: try to fix a problem where the OpenGL libraries where loaded by the X server when we only support X clients (bug #15574)