The arrival of Intel-based Macs ushered in a new era: one where running Windows on Mac OS was made possible, which solved a ton of compatibility complaints. My only beef was that rebooting seemed to take ages, and was often too great an obstacle to run something like Windows Live Writer. If you feel the same way then let me introduce you to VirtualBox. If you have happened to read our post on cloning old pc for free then you would know what I am talking about.
Now you can have the best of both worlds running simultaneously on your computer, without having to reboot. If you’ve got a copy of Windows 7 around, you’re in store for a treat. (yes, this guide uses a Mac as the base for running Windows 7 on it. )
1. Download VirtualBox
First, visit the VirtualBox website to download the .dmg file. Save the version for Intel Macs to your computer, and run it.
- In order to run Mac OS X Applications that leverage the CUDA architecture of certain NVIDIA graphics cards, users will need to download and install the 7.5.29 driver for Mac located here. New in Release 346.03.15f01: Graphics driver updated for Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 (15G31).
- See Section 3.1.1, “Mac OS X Guests” and check the Apple software license conditions. Oracle VM VirtualBox does not provide Guest Additions for Mac OS X at this time. The graphics resolution currently defaults to 1024x768 as Mac OS X falls back to the built-in EFI display support.
Set up the file according to the instructions. It’s quite simple, just run through the .mpkg installer and when you’re done, run it from your Applications folder.
2. Create Virtual Machine
Once VirtualBox is installed, you can create your own Virtual Machine. You can do this by running VirtualBox and click blue spiky New icon.
You’re setting up Windows 7, so remember to select that in the setup process. Keep in mind the amount of RAM you put into your virtual machine could greatly adjust performance, but can also adversely affect performance of the host computer (your Mac). I have 2GB of RAM, so I went with the recommended 512MB of memory. So far, Windows 7 is running well for me. The amount of RAM is adjustable and can be tweaked, so don’t worry about it too much.
I chose to go with a dynamically expanding hard drive because it allows space to be more flexible, and takes up only as much space your Virtual Hard Drive does. For example, if you chose to have a dynamically expanding storage virtual hard drive of 60GB and only had Windows 7 and Microsoft Office on there, the virtual hard drive itself would take up less than 20GB of space on your Mac. Conversely, if you chose a fixed-size storage virtual hard drive, the 60GB of storage would be unavailable from the get-go even if you don’t fill up your virtual hard drive.
Windows 7 itself takes up around 10GB, so I was generous and gave my virtual hard drive around 60GB of storage. Keep in mind there is no easy solution to tweaking hard drive size, so I’d be a bit more careful with this selection.
Here’s a summary of what your VirtualBox virtual machine should resemble.
3. Set up Virtual Machine
The virtual display driver is needed in the case you have a Mac without a monitor connected, ‘headless’. For this case, you may need to install the display driver to have control of the Mac through Splashtop. Note: From macOS 10.13.4 and newer, you do NOT need the display driver for headless.
Now that your virtual machine is complete, it’s time to run it. When you start it up, you will see the First Run Wizard pop up.
Select the DVD drive you’d like VirtualBox to read if you have a physical copy of Windows 7, or if you have a .iso file, browse through your hard drive to its location.
Navigating through VirtualBox might require capturing your cursor. When in doubt, the default key to switch from Windows cursor to Mac cursor is the left ⌘. You can simply click inside the virtual machine to transition back from Mac cursor to Windows cursor.
PART 2: SETTING UP WINDOWS
4. Select disc
Installing Windows 7 is the easy part. Your virtual machine should boot into Windows setup, and you will be met by this screen. Select the only hard drive available, and press next to continue.
5. Install Windows
Go and get some coffee, because Windows 7 takes a while to install. Although on the bright side, it does take less time than the old Windows XP or Vista did.
Your Windows 7 virtual machine might restart every so often, which is to be expected. Once it’s near completion, you will reach this screen.
Keep carrying through the installation as with a normal Windows installation.
6. Guest Additions (or Drivers)
Now, it’s time to wrap up the whole process by installing drivers, as you would with any other machine. These drivers will enable your virtual machine to expand to any screen resolution your monitor supports, amongst many other features. On your Mac, navigate to Devices, then select Install Guest Additions.
This dialog box should pop up on your virtual machine. Run it.
Install all the device software that Windows Security prompts you to, including Display Drivers.
When the guest additions are installed, you will be prompted to reboot. Accept and reboot the computer, and welcome to the world of Windows 7.
Your virtual machine is now complete! If you have any issues, feel free to comment below. Enjoy your new machine, and use the money you saved on Parallels and VMware to have some fun. 🙂
The above article may contain affiliate links which help support Guiding Tech. However, it does not affect our editorial integrity. The content remains unbiased and authentic.Also See#virtualbox #virtualization
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Reported by:Owned by: Component: other Version: VirtualBox 5.0.0 Keywords: Cc: Guest type: Windows Host type: Mac OS X
Description
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Untitled.png (23.3 KB) — added by NullVoxPopuli4 years ago. I just re-installed guest-additionas 5.0.16, and now not only does the guest not resize, but the windows don’t render any of their content. (See attached image) Untitled.jpg (225.7 KB) — added by NullVoxPopuli4 years ago. However, now it seems changing the height of the VM Window doesn’t resize the Guest.
Change History
comment:2 Changed 5 years ago by dirq
comment:4 Changed 5 years ago by granis
comment:6 Changed 5 years ago by terry
Last edited 5 years ago by terry (previous) (diff)
comment:8 Changed 5 years ago by hrdwrkr
comment:9 Changed 5 years ago by wholroyd
Last edited 5 years ago by wholroyd (previous) (diff)
comment:11 Changed 5 years ago by jsalatas
Last edited 5 years ago by jsalatas (previous) (diff)
comment:12 in reply to: ↑ description Changed 5 years ago by richardtallent
comment:14 Changed 5 years ago by prodigy7
comment:15 Changed 5 years ago by DonInVA41
Last edited 5 years ago by DonInVA41 (previous) (diff)
comment:17follow-up:↓ 18 Changed 5 years ago by andyfraley
Mac Os X Virtual Display Drivers
comment:18 in reply to: ↑ 17 ; follow-up:↓ 19 Changed 5 years ago by andyfraley
comment:19 in reply to: ↑ 18 Changed 5 years ago by Piotru
comment:21 Changed 5 years ago by Malcolm
comment:23follow-up:↓ 25 Changed 4 years ago by sunlover
comment:25 in reply to: ↑ 23 Changed 4 years ago by anthonyqkiernan
comment:27follow-up:↓ 29 Changed 4 years ago by sunlover
comment:29 in reply to: ↑ 27 Changed 4 years ago by jsalatas
Last edited 4 years ago by jsalatas (previous) (diff)
comment:30 Changed 4 years ago by mpsmith
Last edited 4 years ago by mpsmith (previous) (diff)
comment:32 Changed 4 years ago by frank
- Status changed from new to closed
- Resolution set to fixed
Changed 4 years ago by NullVoxPopuli
- attachmentUntitled.png added
comment:33 Changed 4 years ago by NullVoxPopuli
- Status changed from closed to reopened
- Resolutionfixed deleted
comment:35 Changed 4 years ago by NullVoxPopuli
Changed 4 years ago by NullVoxPopuli
- attachmentUntitled.jpg added
comment:37 Changed 4 years ago by sunlover
- Status changed from reopened to closed
- Resolution set to fixed
Epson Drivers Mac Os X
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