Old mac in Virtualbox on new mac

[aa33kk]

Hi. I currently use a iMac Mini with macOS Venture. I have some older software that I ran on my previous Mac that I would like to use that won't run on my new machine. Can I set up a VM in VirtualBox to run my older version of macOS X. I was using macOS elCapitan. Thanks for help.

[granada29]

If your current Mac is an Intel machine then the answer is yes - it will run El Capitan under VirtualBox using Ventura.

However, if your current Mac is an M1/M2 then this is not possible. See viewtopic.php?t=107344

[aa33kk]

And is not possible to run in UTM?

[scottgus1]

You'd really have to ask the UTM folks that one. We tend to be somewhat Virtualbox-centric around here for some reason...

[aa33kk]

You'd really have to ask the UTM folks that one. We tend to be somewhat Virtualbox-centric around here for some reason...

Very sorry sir. My stupidity.

I read on the Internet...

Oracle does have beta version of VirtualBox for Apple Silicon. The version *"can run some guest operating systems for Intel x86/x64 CPUs in an emulation"

Is true?

[scottgus1]

Is true?

See Granada29's posted link.

[multiOS]

@aa33kk

If you want to test the progress of the macOS/ARM Beta builds then they are available on the 'Test Builds' page: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds. You will have to regularly check for newer builds, but manual installation/updates on macOS versions that now use Apple's Hypervisor is straightforward, and there is no need to make any alterations to the macOS security settings.

The Test builds do receive regular updates but the last time I checked performance, the best I could achieve was a working version of WindowsXP (32-bit) on which MS Office and Lotus Smartsuite of a matching vintage ran satisfactorily, but this was around 2 months ago and I haven't tried any of the more recent updates to test for any improvement. I didn't test any Linux VMs at that time as I saw little point in seeking out 10-15 year old 32-bit Linux installers/software.

The main developers of alternative virtualisation software for Mac i.e. Parallels, VMWare Fusion, provide so-called 'universal' Mac applications, which do install on both Intel 64-bit and macARM ('M Series') processors but if you read their guidance/advice carefully you will see that what they aim to support is limited to x32/x64 bit virtual machines on Intel Macs and ARM-based virtual machines on M1/2 Series Macs, i.e. no support for Intel emulation on ARM. UTM provides similar virtualisation support to that available from Parallels and VMWare, but also supports a level of CPU emulation with QEMU assistance, but this not really effective/recommended for running any OS which needs the performance of a 'relatively modern' Intel CPU so, if even you could install, say, Windows 7 onwards there is likely to be an increasingly evident performance hit.

[fth0]

The Test builds do receive regular updates

FWIW, the VirtualBox test builds page contains VirtualBox 7.0.11 test builds and VirtualBox 7.0.97 development snapshots. While the former only contain bugfixes, only the latter contain the current advances in functionality, so it only makes sense to try the latter.