virtualbox.org

I'm new to MACs in general, however I have used VB for years on a Windows environment. Here is my problem. On my MacBook Pro host machine, with 10.8.2 aka Mountain Lion, I have Virtual Box 4.2.6 r82870 running successfully, so far so good. I want to install several guest for testing purposes. They are Leopard 10.5, Snow Leopard 10.6 and Lion 10.7. I have an OEM disk with Leopard on it. I think that either my settings are wrong, or their may be a hardware limitation on the newer Host OS running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 that is not able to run an older OS. I have read where people on this forum can't even install Virtual Box for the Mac at all. I don't have that problem. Can someone help me with the exact settings that "should work" for a setup such as this?

At present, only the Server versions run under VirtualBox. The installation disks must install the Server editions.

ChipMcK wrote:At present, only the Server versions run under VirtualBox. The installation disks must install the Server editions.

Do you mean to say that the Server edition is or should be on the Guest install CD? or is there a Virtual Box server edition for Mac's setting somewhere?
The only choice I see in the setup is Mac OS X or Mac OS X (64bit) in the version area of Virtual Box?

Wufoo wrote:I think that either my settings are wrong, or their may be a hardware limitation on the newer Host OS running Mountain Lion 10.8.2 that is not able to run an older OS.

Leopard will run on VB if you can get it to install. Leopard expects to run on older CPUs (and it checks the CPU ID on each startup to make sure it's on a Mac that was supported at the time Leopard was released). The installer also verifies if the Model Identifier is for a supported Mac before it will install the OS. Both of these have simple workarounds (if you intend to run Mac guests on Mac hardware, running on non-Mac hardware is quite a bit more difficult). None of these workarounds can be discussed on these boards but searching on Google should lead you to a few places where this has been documented.

Snow Leopard has a special kink (other than the same minor issues that you get installing Leopard) that makes it a bit difficult to install in VB, and Lion adds a couple more. A lot of the problems you'll run across will depend on the model and year of the host Mac.

Wufoo wrote:Do you mean to say that the Server edition is or should be on the Guest install CD? or is there a Virtual Box server edition for Mac's setting somewhere?

Are you expecting VirtualBox to be supplying the Guest OS, like installation disc of Windows, OS and the various Linux?

VBox does not do that. You acquire the installation media of whatever Guest OS you desire.
Then. under VBox, follow the appropriate install procedure for the selected Guest.

Wufoo wrote:Do you mean to say that the Server edition is or should be on the Guest install CD? or is there a Virtual Box server edition for Mac's setting somewhere?
The only choice I see in the setup is Mac OS X or Mac OS X (64bit) in the version area of Virtual Box?

No, Apple sells the server version of the OS on separate media, they are two different products. On VB there are only two settings for a Mac OS X guest, either Mac OS X Server or Mac OS X Server (64 bit).