VirtualBox on Ventura

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Mac OS X hosts.
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StephenJ
Posts: 12
Joined: 27. Oct 2021, 08:38

VirtualBox on Ventura

Post by StephenJ »

I recently updated my Mac Air to Ventura 13.3 and my VM experience went down the tubes. While I know that Ventura is not supported it had been working fine but the video performance between of VB 7.x on Ventura 13.2 vs 13.3 took a nose dive - especially for Windows hosts.

I have three questions:
Any timeline on when Ventura might be supported?
What is the best way to upgrade to point releases of Mac OS trying to prevent the need to rebuild the machine? Using Time Machine?
Is there a way to control applying Mac OS point updates individually or not? I believe the answer is no but looking for feedback.

Thank you for all your hard work on VirtualBox!
granada29
Volunteer
Posts: 691
Joined: 3. Mar 2015, 07:27
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: VirtualBox on Ventura

Post by granada29 »

VirtualBox 7.0.6 has a few problems on macOS Ventura 13.3. Up until now the reported problems have been crashing when using EFI boot. However, I am guessing you are using the MBR, so although booting successfully are seeing different issues.

Could you please try one of Testbuilds and see if that solves your problem. You can ignore the disabling SIP instructions as they are not applicable to VirtualBox 7.0.x

If the testbuild does not solve your issue, please post a bug ticket in The Bugtracker.
StephenJ
Posts: 12
Joined: 27. Oct 2021, 08:38

Re: VirtualBox on Ventura

Post by StephenJ »

Apologies but I am not able to "try" as it was necessary to rebuild the device following this "upgrade" episode.

I use the Mac Air as my alpha machine to test Mac OS releases to see if I should upgrade a Mac mini that had a "same" configuration.

At this point the Mac Air is no longer running Ventura - it is currently running Monterey and I need to figure out whether I can bring the Mac Air back up to the same revision level as the Mac mini. I have an ticket with Apple that I need to follow up to see about this.

If I get it back to Ventura 13.2 I will attempt what you have requested but I am likely to wait until you issue a certification of Ventura before I apply any further OS updates to either of these hosts to prevent another rebuild/making the VB functionality unusable.

As I've said before and will say again - thank you for all your hard work - it is appreciated!
granada29
Volunteer
Posts: 691
Joined: 3. Mar 2015, 07:27
Primary OS: Mac OS X other
VBox Version: OSE other
Guest OSses: Linux, macOS, Windows

Re: VirtualBox on Ventura

Post by granada29 »

We are not the VirtualBox developers, but just users like yourself.

If you have sufficient free disk space on your Mac Air, you could add a separate volume to the disk and install Ventura along side Monterey, i.e. no need to keep rebuilding your install to try newer versions of macOS.

That is the strategy I employ on my iMac. Multiple versions of macOS can co-exist and you can choose the Startup Disk from System settings/preferences to make the version of the OS you want to test the active one.
StephenJ
Posts: 12
Joined: 27. Oct 2021, 08:38

Re: VirtualBox on Ventura

Post by StephenJ »

Thank you for the feedback on how you manage with different versions of Mac OS.

I see that VB 7 offers TPM and Secure Boot functionality. Does anyone know if this means that VB 7 publishes / allows access to the underlying hardware so that OS like Win 11 can be run on the hardware OR if this is VB 7 emulating the capability?

I am trying to install Win 11 on my VB 7 installation on my Mac Air and it is putting me in the UEFI manager; if I turn off the Special OS flag then it will boot the Win 11 install image but comes back that the hardware is not capable of running Windows 11.

If anyone has any perspective on whether my Mac Air is capable of running Windows 11 as a VB guest please respond. In the meantime I am also starting to review all the postings from the past two years about how to install Windows 11 as a VB guest.
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