VirtualBox 1.6 for Mac OS X: Awesome

Alright, I've been using VMWare Fusion for months now, and I have been very happy with it. In a lot of ways, I saw it as much nicer than Parallels, and it integrates very well with my spaces setup. All of this made its price well-worth it to me.

Enter VirtualBox 1.6. Much more stable (very much) than its predecessors, 1.6 for Mac OS X is everything I want out of my Virtualization Software. Here's why:

First off, I would like to point out my issues with VirtualBox. Seamless mode, to me, feels chunky. I think the idea of having your programs from windows just sit around your Mac OS Desktop is great, but I feel that VMWare's Unity pulls it off way better than VirtualBox does. Sorry guys. So, if you are into your windows programs becoming integrated into your Mac environment, then you might consider paying for VMWare Fusion.

My only other complaint is relatively minor. The way the program manages hiding and showing the Dock was kind of crazy. Sometimes I would leave my Space containing Windows XP, and my Dock wouldn't be there. Also, sometimes I would go into my XP install and my Dock would just sit there on top of it until I clicked on the XP Desktop.

On the other hand, everything else was great. I normally use Fullscreen mode on VMWare Fusion, and then have my VMWare Virtual XP environment running in one of my Spaces, leaving a Virtual Desktop dedicated to all of my windows stuff. You see, that's why Virtual Desktops are so sweet. Anyways, going back to VirtualBox, I found that having it "auto capture my keyboard" (an option available in the VirtualBox Preferences) was irritating, so I disabled it. Once that was done, it was a very nice to use.

A big point for me on these programs is their additions/tools installers. Basically, if you want your Virtual Machine to work at all you need to have the tools/additions package installed. In the past, I felt VirtualBox was pretty weak in this area, but I was pleasantly surprised this time around. 1.6 installed its "Guest Additions" very quickly and without hassle, and afterwards my XP environment really felt like it was starting to make good use of my hardware.

So, in the end, the fixes implemented so far makes this a perfect solution for me, especially because it is free. Great project to follow, especially because of how well it is doing cross-platform.