Hyper-V in VirtualBox or other ways to run Windows Phone 8

[Andrew Brehm]

This article http://www.developer.nokia.com/Communit ... g_Emulator describes how to configure VMware Workstation to support Hyper-V which is required to run the Windows Phone 8 simulator.

Specifically the step "Make sure you select the option “Virtualize Intel VT-x/EPT or ARM-V/RVI”. This is required to be able to run HYPER-V on your virtual machine" is the important part.

Does VirtualBox support a similar mechanism?

If not, what are some other ways to run the Windows Phone 8 SDK?

[mpack]

Hyper-V is the name of a product. Only Hyper-V supports Hyper-V.

OTOH hardware virtualization support is called VT-x (or AMV-v), and yes, VirtualBox supports it. No, no guest will see it whether or not it's enabled (it's a feature of the host) - and I'd have thought the same was true in VMWare.

[Andrew Brehm]

Hyper-V is the name of a product. Only Hyper-V supports Hyper-V.

OTOH hardware virtualization support is called VT-x (or AMV-v), and yes, VirtualBox supports it. No, no guest will see it whether or not it's enabled (it's a feature of the host) - and I'd have thought the same was true in VMWare.

I guess I wasn't clear enough in my question. I wasn't asking about VTx or AMD-v support in VirtualBox.

Hyper-V, incidentally, does not support Hyper-V. Only bare metal does, or so I thought, but apparently VMware does too (perhaps because of their binary translation feature).

Whether VirtualBox supports (i.e. runs on or requires) VT-x wasn't the question. I was asking whether it is possible, somehow, to run Hyper-V within VirtualBox, since it is required for the Windows Phone SDK and since VMware supports such a configuration (unofficially).

I understand VirtualBox does some binary translation for real mode and ring compression but I am not sure about the extent and whether complete binary translation and hence support for Hyper-V (or other VT-x-using hypervisors) is possible at all. It never mattered to me before.

[mpack]

AFAIK, there is no hardware feature called Hyper-V. Hyper-V is the name of a VM product, a bare metal hypervisor. The underlying hardware feature is called VT-x, and VirtualBox supports it. You cannot run a VirtualBox VM inside a Hyper-V VM.

I must say that the blog you've found does appear equally confused about terminology: the blurb shows VT-x being enabled, but I'm not sure why the author thought this equivalent to enabling Hyper-V.

[Andrew Brehm]

AFAIK, there is no hardware feature called Hyper-V. Hyper-V is the name of a VM product, a bare metal hypervisor. The underlying hardware feature is called VT-x, and VirtualBox supports it. You cannot run a VirtualBox VM inside a Hyper-V VM.

I must say that the blog you've found does appear equally confused about terminology: the blurb shows VT-x being enabled, but I'm not sure why the author thought this equivalent to enabling Hyper-V.

I really don't know where you got the idea that by "Hyper-V" I was referring to a hardware feature.

The Nokia article I linked to doesn't do that either.

There was also nothing about running a VirtualBox VM inside a Hyper-V VM either.

The article I linked to is not confused. It simply explains how to run Hyper-V in a VMware VM. Apparently using binary translation (I assume) VMware can virtualise VT-x. I wanted to know whether the same feat is possible in VirtualBox.

I didn't refer to a hardware feature as Hyper-V, I didn't talk about running a VirtualBox VM in a Hyper-V VM, I have no idea how you came up with any of those things.

[BillG]

Short answer, no. VirtualBox does not support nested virtualization (ie you cannot run virtualization software in a virtual machine).

There is a discussion on running a virtualizer in a vm here.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20589

[Petr Vones]

Actually there are more blocking issues. Microsoft states that "There are known compatability issues for XAML designer when running in Virtual Box, we don't support this scenario."

[noteirak]

What you are asking is : "Can I run into a Virtualisation product another Virtualisation product from another editor?"
There will always be only one answer : Not supported, never will be supported.

[i686]

Late post, but i thought it might be interesting for some people. (Maybe, maybe not, who knows...)

Anyway, nested virtualization has been supported in ESXi and VMWare workstation for a long time. Those are the only type1 and type2 (respectively) hypervisors i know of p.t. that supports this. For many sysadmins (me included) this is a vital feature that will allow us to test different scenarios without having to ask our bosses (at work or at home ) to spend anything from a few thousand to tens of thousands on hardware for creating a test platform for hypervisors. Those of you who have been working as sysadmins for some years know the need for having a good testing environment to test stuff before putting it into prod. So virtualized vt-x must and will come. I always used virtualbox, even after oracle bought it and am very happy with it, but i'm seriously considering switching to vmware and buy a license only because of this feature (must use workstation because i have to much ram... bummer... ).

And thats the way the cookie crumbles...

[midix]

I have been running Windows Phone 8 emulator in VMWare Player without problems. Yes, it required manual editing of .vmx file, but is works reliably and without any problems at all.

I really miss this feature on VirtualBox because I find VMWare Player to be bloated and it slows the host system down much more than VirtualBox does.