virtualbox.org

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?

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.

mpack wrote: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.

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.

mpack wrote: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.

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

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."

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.

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...

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.