Summary of problems installing VB on latest MacOSX

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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eric-nh
Posts: 11
Joined: 29. Apr 2019, 20:19

Summary of problems installing VB on latest MacOSX

Post by eric-nh »

Good morning all.

I am contemplating buying a new Macbook Pro with Intel i9 processor (NOT the M1) and 32 GB or 64 GB RAM (basically, near the top-end Macbook Pro) for an embedded system development project I just started working on. The plan is to install VirtualBox (latest stable version) and run a Windows 7 VM, then during development on this project I'll use Mac tools where I can and Windows tools where I must (and there are a few including the development system integrated development environment that aren't available for the Mac).

I have scanned thru a few of the discussion threads on this forum and I see that many people are having serious problems getting VirtualBox to install and/or run on this platform. I currently have a Macbook Air (post-2015 I believe) running High Sierra that I use VirtualBox on every day and it works flawlessly, unfortunately the Macbook Air doesn't have nearly enough RAM (8 GB max) for this application as I need to allocate 8 GB bare minimum (16 GB preferred) to the Win7 VM.

So, my questions...

1. Can anyone point me to a writeup, preferably within the last few months, that summarizes the problems with getting VirtualBox to run on a current Macbook Pro and their workarounds?

2. I don't have time for a lot of problems getting this done and basically I need it to Just Work out of the box (like it did on the Macbook Air), or as close to that as possible. I really, Really, REALLY want to buy the Macbook Pro for this but if I absolutely must, I'll hold my nose and buy a higher-end Win10 laptop for this project. So, those of you who have been there, if you were in my position would you buy the Macbook Pro and suffer through the issues getting it all to run, or buy a Win10 laptop and just get back to work on the project?

Even if I'm forced into the Win10 laptop, I'll still install VirtualBox and do most of my work out of the VM but VirtualBox has Just Worked on every Windows installation I've done for many years and I'm really hoping for the same with the Mac.

Thanks...

Eric
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