Subj : virtual box install on win7
To   : Fzf
From : Ogg
Date : Mon Dec 30 2024 09:29 am

Hello Fzf!

 Og>> Anyone here have experience in installing VirtualBox on a Win7
 Og>> machine?

 F> Yes.  The last version which officially supports Windows 7 as a host OS is
 F> 6.0.24 and that is what I would recommend you stay with (see below).  6.1
 F> does mostly work but some oddball problems pop up from time to time.

BTW, the fist search results for virtualbox come with:

VirtualBox.org

https://www.virtualbox.org  ..but it seems defunct and unreachable.

Found the file offerings at oracle.com.  BUT.. the link for  
"older 6.1 versions" is:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_6_1

...and fails.


Meanwhile..  I did find this with a fluke google search:

https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.0

...and the next directory up lists everything.

Thanks for the heads up on 6.0.24.  But where is the last  
official Win7 supported version for it documented?


 Og>> My pc is 64bit, and 8GB ram.

 F> The only reason you would really need to go to a later
 F> VirtualBox version is for guest OS additions for more
 F> recent operating systems.  And those newer OSes are not
 F> likely to work well enough to be usable on older hardware
 F> like you're describing here.

I don't think my pc is that old/bad.
T540p, Intel Core i5 4300M, 2 Cores, 2.6GHz

I just want to give a simple Linux distro a home for  
occassional access to things like yt-dlp (support for which has  
been ceased for Win7)

BTW..  my CPU analysis reports:

Virtualization: Supported, Disabled.

Does this have to be enabled before I can expect VirtualBox to
work?  There doesn't seem to be any docs on that matter either.
It just looks and sounds related.


 F> You are also not going to like what 6.1 and later does to
 F> guest VM CPU performance on older Intel CPUs (if that's
 F> what you have).

Noted.  Not planning to have the latest/greatest linux on my  
machine.  I just want basic access to some linux tools.



--- OpenXP 5.0.58
 * Origin: (} Pointy McPointFace (21:4/106.21)

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