Oracle has released Virtualbox 5.0 with some major improvements including Paravirtualization support for modern Windows and Linux guests, xHCI controller to support USB 3.0 devices, Improved Drag & Drop support, and more.

This release contains significant improvements, with a large number of enhancement and bug fixes.

I would like to highlight just a few of the many new features:

Paravirtualization support for modern Windows and Linux guests

Oracle VM VirtualBox is able to expose a paravirtualization interface to facilitate accurate and efficient execution of software. Once the virtual machine platform is defined, Oracle VM VirtualBox improves guest OS performances by leveraging built-in virtualization support (KVM on Linux guests and Hyper-V on Windows guests).

xHCI controller to support USB 3.0 devices

Guest operating systems are now able to directly recognize USB 3.0 devices and operate at full 3.0 speeds. Guest can now be configured to use USB 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 devices.

Improved Drag & Drop support

Starting from Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 we improved the support of a bi-directional drag&drop between guest and host operating system; drag and drop support is available with latest guest-additions installed.

Disk image encryption

Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 allows for encrypted virtual disk images by leveraging AES algorithm in XTS mode (128-bit or 256-bit); since the DEK is stored as part of the virtual machine configuration file, encryption introduces a further security feature that will ask for a password while starting the virtual machine.

Headless and Detachable start options

Oracle VM VirtualBox now supports starting virtual machines in the background with a separate front-end process that can be closed while the virtual machine continues to work.

Further GUI improvements:

VM guest-content scaling support (including 3D acceleration)
New User Interface settings page for customizing status-bar, menu-bar and guest-content scaling
New Encryption settings tab for customizing encryption options for disk images
HiDPI support including application icons and optional unscaled HiDPI output on Mac OS X (including 3D acceleration)
Hotplugging support for SATA disks
Improved HID LEDs synchronization for Mac and Windows hosts
Take the guest screen aspect ratio into account for the preview window
Provide direct access to storage media in the VM selector

If you need further details, please refer to Official Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.0 data sheet, User Manual and virtualbox.org website.

  Virtualbox 5.0 released