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mattspace

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 5, 2013
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Australia
Can anyone with some experience with VirtualBox, or virtualising in general see anything wrong with this config, that would be causing it to be glacially slow or panic on boot?

Thanks.

1670002135320.png
 

chrfr

macrumors G5
Jul 11, 2009
13,709
7,280
Can anyone with some experience with VirtualBox, or virtualising in general see anything wrong with this config, that would be causing it to be glacially slow or panic on boot?

Thanks.

View attachment 2122372
Virtualbox is not especially fast, but you may have too much RAM allocated to the virtual machine.
 

MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
3,697
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UK
How come on the VB site, it only lists Snow Leopard Server as the one Mac guest OS....?
This is what put me off it a while ago, as I thought that was the only version it supported in a virtual machine.
 

chrfr

macrumors G5
Jul 11, 2009
13,709
7,280
How come on the VB site, it only lists Snow Leopard Server as the one Mac guest OS....?
This is what put me off it a while ago, as I thought that was the only version it supported in a virtual machine.
Until Lion was released, only the server versions of OS X were licensed to be used as virtual machines. I assume Virtualbox has never updated their documentation to address the subsequent changes in Apple’s license terms.
 
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MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
3,697
2,097
UK
I just tried a VB install (version 6), and gave up....:confused:
Followed the steps to create the vdi file, but then got lost.....couldn't figure out how to install the guest OS.

I had the trial of Parallels a few years ago, and it seemed so much easier to setup, suppose that's what your paying for.
You just selected the OS download and it setup.

I'm assuming any left behind files won't hurt.
I just moved the Application and Prefs folder to the trash.
 

mattspace

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 5, 2013
3,344
2,975
Australia
I just tried a VB install (version 6), and gave up....:confused:
Followed the steps to create the vdi file, but then got lost.....couldn't figure out how to install the guest OS.

It is harder than parallels. Effectively, you create the VM, and then you have to point it to an .iso of the OS installer in its virtual CD drive, it boots from the iso, and then you use the installers disk utility to format the virtual drive, and install to it.

Biggest problem I ran into, was that I created the iso from the downloaded full installer, but when VB booted from it, it kept doing a remote install from Apple's servers.

To solve that, I had to recreate the .iso from an "install macos (whatever)" that was on a bootable USB stick.

I had the trial of Parallels a few years ago, and it seemed so much easier to setup, suppose that's what your paying for.
You just selected the OS download and it setup.

Unless you subscribe, parallels is limied to 4 cores and 4gb of memory, also, parallels doesn't offer multiple displays for the guest OS.

My goal was to virtualise my 3 display system, so I could effectively swipe to a space that's an older version of macOS. I'm still not sure if it can be done.
I'm assuming any left behind files won't hurt.
I just moved the Application and Prefs folder to the trash.

I used AppCleaner to remove Parallels - there's some com. etc files that get picked up as well.
 
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MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
3,697
2,097
UK
I used AppCleaner to remove Parallels - there's some com. etc files that get picked up as well.
I ended up using the 'un-installer' app (after watching a YouTube vid), it didn't work initially because I was typing 'y' instead of 'yes' in Terminal.
 

MarkC426

macrumors 68040
May 14, 2008
3,697
2,097
UK
Since I un-installed VB, I noticed this in TechTool Monitor....

Nothing shows in Finder/Disk Utility/System Profiler for this drive, only in TechTool.
It's probably not worth bothering about, just wondered if there is a way to remove it, maybe in Terminal?

Tehtool Monitor.png
 

mattspace

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jun 5, 2013
3,344
2,975
Australia
I ended up using the 'un-installer' app (after watching a YouTube vid), it didn't work initially because I was typing 'y' instead of 'yes' in Terminal.
I'm always suspicious of any application that claims the way to remove it is to just drag the app to the trash - I don't believe any developer is naive enough to not understand people want all the /Library & ~/Library files their software creates gone when they delete the app.
 
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avro707

macrumors 68020
Dec 13, 2010
2,263
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I just put Virtualbox on my Monterey 12.6.1 dual-X5690 machine to run Windows 10.

I only want to run PerfPro Studio on this one (so nothing demanding) but it is so slow as to be unusable. Clicking the start menu takes 20 seconds to do anything, if Cortana decides to open then it's game over, even slower.

I've set it to have 3D acceleration, even installed the guest additions and have set it to have 16gb RAM out of my 96gb and 8 CPU cores, where am I going wrong here?

And it absolutely thrashes my CPUs, I see the temps going through the roof on them. :(

Back in 2011 I used to run Virtualbox from that time with Windows 7 on a i7 2.8ghz iMac 27" with Radeon 4870 and 32GB ram - it ran way faster on that. my dual-X5690 CMP should be way faster.
 

avro707

macrumors 68020
Dec 13, 2010
2,263
1,654
I ended up using the last still supported Virtualbox 6.x versions on the single CPU Mac Pro 5,1 and putting Windows 10 64 bit on it. That worked acceptably - not fast but at least stable enough to run.

The other attempt on the dual CPU machine was Virtualbox 7.

Edit: spoke too soon, it’s far too slow for actual use and freezes up randomly at times. I suspect the high resolution is too much for VMware to handle.
 
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