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This slows down the virtual machine very slightly, but it is essential for running 64-bit guest operating systems like Windows and Linux. There are three Extended Features and the first is Enable I/O APIC. The red area on the slider shows when too much memory is allocated. If you allocate too much memory to VirtualBox then Windows will suffer. The RAM in the PC is shared with Windows and VirtualBox.
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It is almost like getting a new computer. Upgrading an old style mechanical disk drive to a solid state drive is one of the best ways to make the computer faster. VirtualBox and virtual machines make heavy use of the disk and the speed of the disk is a big factor affecting the performance of Linux or Windows running as a guest OS. Here are some tips to boost VirtualBox performance and Linux, Windows and other guest operating systems running smoothly.
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Menus open slowly, buttons react slowly when clicked, apps load and run slowly and it can all be very irritating. However, sometimes VirtualBox performance sucks. It is not like running apps on the desktop, but apps do run quite quickly in virtual machines. Running software in an operating system running on a virtual machine (emulator/simulator) on top of an operating system like Windows can be quite good. You can even download Windows for free and run it in VirtualBox. Linux distros are free and work great in virtual machines. VirtualBox is great for testing software because it runs in the virtual machine and does not affect, or infect in the case of malware, the rest of the PC.ĭownloading and installing VirtualBox is easy and the software is free. It is a sort of PC simulator or emulator and the guest OS that is installed, such as Windows, Linux and so on, runs in a window on the desktop like regular software apps. When an operating system is installed into VirtualBox it runs as a virtual machine. VirtualBox is a great way to run other operating systems on your PC without having to partition the disk, fiddle around with boot managers, and other technical matters, all of which can cause problems if not carried out properly.
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