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Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform designed to help organizations run virtual desktops and applications in the cloud. It offers businesses with built-in migration tools, which enables administrators to migrate remote desktop services (RDS) and Windows server desktops to various devices.
Oracle VM VirtualBox is an open-source cross-platform virtualization software, which helps organizations create, manage, and run multiple virtual machines (VMs) simultaneously. Features include guest multiprocessing, USB device support, remote machine display, RDP authentication & soft keyboard.
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Josh H.
Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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We're now able to run some legacy software packages inside a modern Microsoft Windows environment without having to replace them, saving a lot of time and money in the process!
The software works well with most modern processors and can be tailored to suit your hardware with minimal performance hogging. I find it easy to migrate virtual machines from other platforms into the VirtualBox desktop client and once running, rarely run into reliability issues.
The configuration steps for each virtual machine can often be over-complicated or settings are named differently to most other virtualization platforms. The USB pass-through functionality has proven unreliable in some cases and unfortunately the software doesn't do much to help you with that. The GUI is in desperate need of optimization in terms of both configuration and daily use.
Carl T.
Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for 2+ years
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I have been using this to work work with visual studios on a Mac for years, as some applications were still running with Microsoft .Net framework. I converted my physically PC to a vm using virtualbox tools.
VIrtualbox is a cross platform, desktop emulation software. Want to run an old version of windows xp, because some mission critical software was not upgrade to windows 7/8/10? Run that software in a windows xp virtualbox. It a great way also to test software for compatibility across multiple operating systems.
User interface has not really be updated much, but very functional.
Mandisi Q.
Education Management, 1-10 employees
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Since I own a non-Microsoft Windows operating system laptop, I use Oracle VirtualBox to run windows on that machine. In that way, I get to use both operating systems on one machine saving me a fortune.
I love free software and because I get to save a lot on license fees.
Majid s.
Computer Software, self-employed
Used other for 1-2 years
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If you want to Test a software over a guest os it is a very good tool. but it is not a good choice for having your guest OS as a service in the background.
1-It supports a variety of Disk Image Files including VDI (Virtual box native disk), VMDK (VMWare), VHD (Microsoft) without any need for conversion. 2-Using USB ports of Host PC for guest OS works in the best shape
If a user wants to use VirtualBox as a service in windows, it is not supported by VirtualBox features. users need to use VBoxVmService 3rd Party Software which is not bug-free and error-free.
Ricardo A.
Consumer Goods, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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Pretty good, lots of laboratory for learning and training were set up in here.
I find very useful the user interface and options VB has when it comes to sharing content between the host and the virtual machines. The auto-expanding virtual disks are also a great feat so you dont have to worry about how much you are gonna need. The customization is really good and the network management is really neat.
I wish there would be more cloud connected features even for a small price, so you can import and export machines with ease, have some backups and storage, but I guess AWS, DigitalOCean, Microsoft and others can handle that.
Verified reviewer
Events Services, 51-200 employees
Used weekly for 1-2 years
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We have a Mac and PC environment so VirtualBox helps out those on Mac's to access the software that has to be accessed on a PC. It's a good solutions for the company and the IT team has mastered the technical issues they have run into in the past so it is working great.
It does what it promises - giving me access to a virtual Microsoft machine. We have certain web based software that we need to access through Internet Explorer so I cannot get onto it with my Mac. VirtualBox gives me the ability to access the platforms.
It can be tricky to setup and does have some bugs that we have had to work out overtime. Once we worked through those issues it has been working great.
Matt M.
Used daily for 1-2 years
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The main advantage to this, over something like VMWare Workstation, is that this software is free. It's got a rather small footprint and runs well enough, and doesn't have the same limitations that other free virtualization products do (Microsoft VirtualPC can only run 32bit hosts, VMWare Player can only run one VM at a time, etc).
I find that the software doesn't always have the best performance, at least in my experience. I've also had virtual machines crash and have been unable to get them to power back up after. The vmdk seems to be intact when this happens, and I've recovered by creating a new VM with the same virtual disk, but it's a step that I would like to not have to take.
Kevin H.
Information Services, 201-500 employees
Used weekly for 2+ years
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The product works well when asking students or participants to spin up virtual machines in a quick and easy manner. If you do not already have VMWare technolgoies in your environment, the use of this software for desktop-based virtualization is pretty much a no-brainer. Even if you do have VMWare products, the ability to perform development, testing, or other work within a free product that is virtually equivalent to a paid product is a great thing to have.
This software does a pretty good job with virtualizing both Linux and Windows guest VMs inside of your desktop environment. It makes spinning up new systems and testing them out relatively easy, and the built-in network features make it straightforward when deciding what VLAN or network type you would like your VM to be running on.
Performance appears to be a bit slower than using VMWare Workstation Pro. Additionally, the documentation on Oracle's site is nowhere as comprehensive as that of VMWare or Microsoft. Finally, there is a longstanding issue with CredentialGuard and Windows 10 which requires that certain security precautions be disabled in order for VirtualBox to operate. While this has *finally* been solved in VMWare Workstation, this is still a rather significant issue in VirtualBox which is a detriment to its use.
Libio L.
Used daily for 2+ years
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To test operating systems. To use software that is not available in our operating system. Create and simulate a network of servers.
It allows me to test different programs without altering my operating system. I can create multiple servers to simulate different networks and test the operation of a server before putting it into operation. I can enter with different programs without altering my operating system. can be installed in any operating system and be able to use all programs, either private or free, since you have no restrictions for use. VirtualBox supports the virtualization of the following operating systems: Microsoft Windows GNU / Linux Mac OS X OS / 2 Warp Solaris / OpenSolaris FreeBSD MS-DOS Android etc.
You need a powerful computer. We have to take into account that if we use 2 operating systems simultaneously we are using twice as many resources. Operating systems and programs will run slower in virtual machines. This is because the virtual machines can not get an ideal performance of the hardware that we have in our team. The more powerful our computer is, the loss of performance will be noticed. If we have a problem with the computer hosting the host operating system, the service may fall on the entire virtual machine. Therefore the computer that runs the virtual machine is a critical part.
Charith K.
Higher Education, 10,001+ employees
Used monthly for 2+ years
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The experience I had with VirtualBox is simply amazing. This is a lightweight yet a powerful software that enables the user to emulate a PC with an OS in your computer and test-out its functionality. As a programmer, I found this really helpful in learning different Operating systems like Linux and Ubuntu. In the second semester of my University we used this tool to learn Linux shell commands and related functionality efficiently without directly installing Linux in our computers .
VirtualBox is an open-source/free hosted hypervisor developed by Oracle. Using VirtualBox we can allocate some RAM and Secondary Storage to create a Virtual Machine (emulation of another PC) inside of our PC. This helps a lot when you want to try out the functionality of different Operating Systems. I used VirtualBox to create a Virtual Machine with Linux Installed (I use Microsoft Windows 10 as my primary OS) to learn about the functionality of Linux Shell and its commands. It is efficient and easy to create such a Virtual Machine and install a OS to it rather than installing a second OS to your own PC. You can create such a virtual machine even if you don't have a large RAM or a secondary storage.
There were no major cons of this software in my experience. However, I believe that the user-interface of the app looks a bit outdated and it can be improved. Also, the procedure of creating a virtual machine and installing an OS can be a bit confusing and complicated for a beginner.