Install Windows 7 RC x64 on a Mac Pro with Sun Virtual Box!

Windows 7 RC has been out for a while now.  It is one of the best Windows operating systems I have ever used and thus I wanted to give it a shot as a Virtual Machine on my Mac Pro using Sun’s FREE Virtual Box software.  There are multiple solutions in the market for running virtual machines on a Mac (VMWARE, Parallels, etc) but free is free and thus that is what I chose to try my installation.  While it sounds easy to accomplish there are a couple of ‘gotchas’ on the Mac Pro.  This post is long and full of screen shots so I encourage you to read the whole post.

What was used:

1. Virtual Box 2.2.4 For OS X Hosts
2. Microsoft Windows 7 – Build 7100 – x64 (download via Technet or on Microsoft’s website).
3. RealTek Audio Drivers

Steps:

1. Download Windows 7 x64 ISO to Mac Desktop
2. Download and install Sun Virtual Box
3. Run Virtual Box and create a new virtual machine
4. Set Ram to 2048mb and Video Ram to 128mb
5. Disable Network Card
6. Assign CD Rom to use Windows 7 ISO File
7. Install Windows 7
8. Install Virtual Box Additions
9. Shutdown Windows
10. Enable Network Card from Virtual Box Settings
11. Start Windows
12. Install Realtek Drivers
13. Enjoy your new virtual machine.

Issues:
The installation is as easy as can be but there were two simple issues with the process:

• Network card must be disabled at installation otherwise Windows 7 will Freeze at first boot up.  This is because the Sun Virtual Box machine additions need to be installed prior to Windows recognizing and utilizing the network card properly.
• The network cannot be used in bridged mode as it causes the Windows 7 Virtual Machine to freeze – it works fine in NAT mode.
• Audio drivers must be downloaded from RealTek as the default audio drivers refuse to work properly.

As a Side Note – Sun is aware of the following issues for this release of Virtual Box:

1. No support for audio input.
2. The numlock emulation has not yet been implemented.
3. The CPU frequency metric is not supported.
4. 3D OpenGL acceleration. In general the OpenGL support for Linux guest is experimental. This counts especially in combination with compiz enabled window managers.
5. Additionally we are aware of the following issues:
   • OpenGL windows aren’t updated in the Dock Icon real time preview.
   • There are several redraw problems with compiz enabled window managers on Linux guests. E.g. after save/restore state or a resize of the guest window.
   • OpenGL host support is not yet available on 64-bit kernels (Mac OS X 10.6).

My thoughts:
I love Sun Virtualbox’s speed and ability to run pretty much any OS that you can throw at it.  My only issue at the moment is the bridging of the network card so that I can have my Windows 7 VM on my home network.  VirtualBox has a way to go to catch up with the commercial packages that are out there…but there is no doubt in my mind that it will catch up and probably surpass them at some point.  Besides, its FREE….beggers cant be choosers.  The screen shots below show you a basic step by step of the steps I outlined above…there are many more settings available which you may or may not need.  Please let me know your thoughts and your experiences with the installation via comments…I look forward to answering questions and or sharing information.

Screenshots of the Install: