Just bought a new MacBook for my wife, cus her old Dell is dying.
Mac has a very powerful Snow Leopard on board and with plenty useful softwares built-in (iPhoto, iMovie.. you get the idea). But as a PC user for many years, you just can't ignore that PC did a great job for you even though you may have to face that notorious blue screen. However, Microsoft wasted no time to release Windows 7 last year. By far it is the best windows system made by Microsoft.
So I want to run both of them on the MacBook. To realize this plan you have to have the tool Virtual Machine. In this case, you don't have to choose which one to boot up your computer, you can have them running side by side. VMware is the biggest name in the market, but after you bought MacBook and Windows 7 the price tag becomes too high.
I read some articles that mentioned about VirtualBox 3.1.2 a free virtual machine from Sun Microsystems and almost all of them gave it a very high praise. Thus, I want to give it a try.
After downloaded it to the Mac, the installation is just effortless. To install windows 7 on VirtualBox was not difficult at all and you have to give Microsoft and Sun some credits. They make our life much easier than a decade ago. Since I elected to install 64-bit version to the virtual machine, I encountered a problem people who installed 32-bit version would never meet. There was no sound for the system.
It took me sometimes to find the solution from VirtuaBox forum. You need to first download the AC'97 audio codecs driver from Realtek. Then installing it to your windows 7 and reboot your computer. Now you should hear the startup sound from your win 7. If not, you'll need to force windows run update.
However, it seems the challenge is not over yet. The screen just stuck at 800x600 resolution. I adjusted several times but I had to jump back and forth to scroll the screen up and down to see the content in the windows system. It's not user friendly at all. The solution is you have your windows system running in the VirtualBox and at Mac's menubar you should see four options from left to right are VirtualBox VM, Machine, Devices and Help. Choose the devices option, you'll see install guest additions and click it. It'll have a download screen in your windows system asking you to download VirtualBox guest additions. Install it after download the program and then follow the instruction the system ask you to do.
Wala, you have a seamless integration for your windows 7 and your VirtualBox. The system will change your mouse pointer to windows when you hover your mouse over to Windows or give the control back to Mac when you move your mouse pointer away from windows system.
Free is always a good thing, especially you can get a very functional software for nothing. I have to say Excellent Job, Sun Micro.
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