VirtualBox’s code is maintained by Oracle, hence the complete name Oracle VM VirtualBox.

Free and Low-Cost Virtualization Alternatives.

Running Windows 11 Apps With VirtualBox.

Installing VirtualBox Part III: Getting Into the Registry.

Installing VirtualBox Part II: Some Important Hints.

How to Install VirtualBox Part I: It’s Not Easy.

I’ll list some alternative methods for running Windows apps on Apple Silicon at the end of this review. If you have an Apple Silicon Mac, don’t even think about using VirtualBox, because it won’t run at all on an M1-based Mac, not even with Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation layer that makes many Intel-based apps run on Apple Silicon.

I’ll mention other low-cost and no-cost ways to run Windows apps on an Intel Mac, but VirtualBox may be the one that best fits your needs. But unless you need the fast performance and easy setup that the commercial products offer, and if you’re willing to put up with multiple annoyances before Windows runs the way you want it, VirtualBox can get the job done. No-cost methods aren’t always the best ones, and commercial products like Parallels Desktop ($79.99) and VMware Fusion (also $79.99) do a faster and better job than VirtualBox of emulating Windows on a Mac.

VirtualBox isn’t the best way to run Windows apps-or a complete Windows system-on an Intel Mac, but it’s the only method that costs nothing, uses open-source software, and is reasonably simple to set up.

Oracle vm virtual box