path: root/doc/manual/user_ChangeLogImpl.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!--
    Copyright (C) 2006-2022 Oracle and/or its affiliates.

    This file is part of VirtualBox base platform packages, as
    available from https://www.virtualbox.org.

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
    modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
    as published by the Free Software Foundation, in version 3 of the
    License.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
    WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
    General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program; if not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses>.

    SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0-only
-->

<!--
Release change log structure

Each release has a matching log of changes which were made for that and
earlier releases. Earlier releases means anything with a lower number (e.g.
5.0.18 is lower than 5.1.2) which was released before this one. The log is
kept in the file doc/manual/user_ChangeLogImpl.xml. Anything worth mentioning,
particularly new features and fixed bugs, with a trac bug number if possible,
should be added to the top of the change log (that is, the section for the
upcoming release) for the branch in which it first appears - stable or
development - before the next release. If you back-port it to older branches
please add an entry there too. When a new major release is made, change log
sections for earlier releases are merged in.

Change log sections are split into two groups: major new features (normally
only for dot zero releases) and fixes. In addition, the entries in each group
are ordered as follows:

    VMM-related entries (most important)
    GUI-related entries (most visible for users)
    Device-related entries
    VBoxManage/API/Main-related entries
    Host-related entries
    Guest-related entries
    BIOS/EFI/ACPI-related entries

Please do further ordering as seems appropriate by importance and visibility for
users, e.g. audio before serial ports and generally Windows before Linux.  Please
also try to describe the user impact, not the technical details, and only use
technical terms if no non-technical ones are clear enough.

Rules for adding a changelog entry to make them look more uniform:

    1. Begin the entry with an UPPERCASE letter, e.g. "Foo: Fixed" vs. "Foo: fixed"
    2. Use the past form of something, e.g. "Fixed ..." vs. "Fix ..."
    3. No dot (.) after the entry, e.g. "<para>Foo: Bar</para>" vs. "<para>Foo: Bar.</para>"
    4. Use TWO (2) spaces for indentation
    5. Use line breaks when hitting column 80

    Full example:

        <listitem>
          <para>Foo: Fixed something really important, really really long line
            with lots more text not fitting into 80 columns</para>
        </listitem>
-->
<chapter>

<!-- HACK ALERT! Seems we must have a single top level element for xi:include to work.
                           So, we use chapter and xpointer="xpointer(/chapter/)" with xi:include. -->
  <sect1>

    <title>Version 7.0.6 (2023-01-17)</title>

    <para>This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or
      added:</para>

    <itemizedlist>

      <listitem>
        <para>VMM: Fixed guru running the FreeBSD loader on older Intel CPUs
          without unrestricted guest support (bug #21332)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Fixed virtual machines grouping when VM was created or
          modified in command line (bugs #11500, #20933)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Introduced generic changes in settings dialogs</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VirtioNet: Fixed broken network after loading saved state
          (bug #21172)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Storage: Added support for increasing the size of the following
          VMDK image variants: monolithicFlat, monolithicSparse, twoGbMaxExtentSparse,
          twoGbMaxExtentFlat</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VBoxManage: Added missing --directory switch for guestcontrol mktemp command</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Mouse Integration: Guest was provided with extended host mouse state (bug #21139)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>DnD: Introduced generic improvements</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Guest Control: Fixed handling creation mode for temporary directories
          (bug #21394)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Host and Guest: Added initial support for building UEK7 kernel on
          Oracle Linux 8</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Host and Guest: Added initial support for RHEL 9.1 kernel</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Windows Host: Fixed support for VM autostart (bug#21349)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Added initial support for kernel 6.2 for vboxvideo</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Audio: The "--audio" option in VBoxManage is now marked as
          deprecated; please use "--audio-driver" and "--audio-enabled"
          instead. This will allow more flexibility when changing the driver
          and/or controlling the audio functionality</para>
      </listitem>

    </itemizedlist>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>

    <title>Version 7.0.4 (2022-11-18)</title>

    <para>This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or
      added:</para>

    <itemizedlist>

      <listitem>
        <para>VMM: Added nested paging support for nested virtualization (Intel hosts only)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VMM: Fixed rare guru meditations with certain guests on macOS 10.15 (Catalina) (bug #21237)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VMM: Fixed possible VM process crash on Windows hosts when Hyper-V is used with certain guests (bug #21174)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VMM: Fixed Windows XP guest hang or BSOD on AMD CPUs under certain circumstances (bug #21256)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Various bugfixes for the Guest Control file manager</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Added more informative file operations in the Guest Control file manager</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Added an option to the global settings (the display page) to resize user interface font</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Fixed a regression in new vm wizard. Selected virtual disks are no longer deleted when the wizard
          is cancelled (bug #21244)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Added a new menu item to the devices menu to optionally upgrade the guest additions.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VirtioSCSI: Fixed recognition of the virtio SCSI controller by the EFI firmware (bug #21200)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VirtioSCSI: Fixed hang when shutting down the VM if the virtio SCSI controller is used (bug #21144)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>virtio-net: Workaround a bug in the virtio-net driver included in FreeBSD version up to 12.3
          which renders the device non functional (bug #21201)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Storage: Fixed I/O errors with the VirtioSCSI controller when the host I/O cache is enabled (bug #19717)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VBoxManage: Fixed regression when 'createmedium disk --variant RawDisk' command resulted
          in invalid .vmdk file (bug #21125)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Main: Restored input pointing device behavior in multi-monitor
          VM configuration (bug #21137)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Main: Fixed progress indication during automatic Linux
          Guest Additions installation</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Guest Control: Fixed path handling issues (bug #21095)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>3D: Fixed VM process crash on macOS with 3D enabled (bug #21232)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Host and Guest: General improvements in startup scripts</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Introduced initial support for
          RHEL 8.7 and 9.2 kernels (bug #21272, #21258)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Introduced initial support for SLES 15.4 kernels</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Fixed kernel modules rebuild behavior on
          system shutdown</para>
      </listitem>

    </itemizedlist>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>

    <title>Version 7.0.2 (2022-10-20)</title>

    <para>This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or
      added:</para>

    <itemizedlist>

      <listitem>
        <para>Known issue: VMs having more than one vCPU configured will not work properly on macOS
          Catalina due to an unknown memory corruption issue. Either lower the number of vCPUs to 1
          or upgrade to BigSur or later where the issue does not occur</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Main: Fixed issue when VBoxSVC could become unresponsive if Extension Pack
          was not installed (bug #21167)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>macOS hosts: Added workaround for a bug in the Hypervisor framework on Catalina causing
          VERR_NEM_MAP_PAGES_FAILED errors when starting a VM. (bug #21128)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>macOS hosts: Re-introduced support for internal networking, this is considered a bit
          experimental still</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>macOS hosts: Fixed VM crash when the guest tries to access a microphone or webcam</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Windows host: Shared Clipboard: Fixed issue when only 4Kb of host
          clipboard buffer was accessible to guest (bug #21149)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Introduced initial support for kernel 6.1</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Fixed issue when VBoxClient seamless service
          caused a crash of some X11 applications (bug #21132)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Windows hosts: GUI: Fixed missing Qt libraries for vista style and sql driver (bug #21155)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Fixed a glitch in the log viewer which was causing wrong log file to be saved (bug #21156)</para>
      </listitem>

    </itemizedlist>
  </sect1>

  <sect1>

    <title>Version 7.0.0 (2022-10-10)</title>

    <para>This is a major update. The following major new features were added:</para>

    <itemizedlist>

      <listitem>
        <para>Virtual machines can be fully encrypted now, including the VM config logs
          and saved states (CLI only for now)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>OCI: Cloud virtual machines can be added to Virtual Machine Manager and controlled
          as local VMs</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>OCI: Cloud networks can now be configured via Network Manager tool same way as
          it is done for Host-only and NAT networks</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Added a new utility similar to "top" or "resource monitor" which lists peformance statistics
        (CPU usage, RAM usage, disk I/O rate, etc.) of running guests</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Reworked the new vm wizard to integrate the unattended
        guest OS installation and to have a more streamlined work flow</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Added a new help viewer widget which enables the user manual to be navigated
        and searched</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Adding new notification center unifying most of running progresses and error
          reporting around the GUI</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Improved theme support on all platforms. Linux and macOS
          use native engine while for Windows host it is separately implemented.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Large icon update.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Audio recording: Now using Vorbis as the default audio format for WebM containers.
          Opus is no longer being used.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Audio: Added "default" host driver type to make it possible to move VMs (appliances) between different platforms
          without the need of changing the audio driver explicitly. When the "default" driver is selected, the best audio backend
          option for a platform will be used. This is the default for newly created VMs.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Guest Control: Implemented initial support for automatic updating
          of Guest Additions for Linux guests</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Guest Control: Implemented ability to wait for and/or reboot the
          guest when updating Guest Additions via VBoxManage</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>VBoxManage: Added Guest Control "waitrunlevel" sub-command to
          make it possible to wait for a guest to reach a certain run level</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Windows hosts: Added experimental support of running autostarted VMs
          in session 0, to allow running VMS even when a usser is not being logged
          in (disabled by default, please consult the manual)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>macOS host: Dropped all kernel extensions. VirtualBox relies fully on
          the hypervisor and vmnet frameworks provided by Apple now. At the moment
          the implementation lacks "Internal Networking" functionality. This will be
          provided at a later date.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>macOS host: Providing a Developer Preview package for systems with
          an Apple silicon CPU. This is unsupported work in progress, and is known
          to have very modest performance.</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Linux Guest Additions: Reworked guest screen re-size functionality,
          added basic integration with some of guest Desktop Environments</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Devices: Implemented new 3D support based on DirectX 11 (and DXVK
          on non Windows hosts)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Devices: Added virtual IOMMU devices (Intel and AMD variant)</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Devices: Added virtual TPM 1.2 and 2.0 devices</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Devices: The EHCI and XHCI USB controller devices are now part of the
          open source base package</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>EFI: Added support for Secure Boot</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>Debugging: Added experimental support for guest debugging through
          GDB and highly experimental support for guest debugging through KD/WinDbg</para>
      </listitem>

    </itemizedlist>

    <para>In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:</para>

    <itemizedlist>

      <listitem>
        <para>OCI: Cloud networking functionality is enhanced for local VMs, now local VMs could
          be connected to cloud networking</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Improved behavior of the virtual machine list and various VM related tools in case
          multiple items are selected</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: On available platforms, added a new option to disable the host's screensaver</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Reworked global preferences, machine settings and the wizards to improve stability
          and usability</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Improving mouse handling in multi-monitor case on X11 platform</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Medium enumeration engine was reworked to improve permormance</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: NAT Network stuff was moved from global preferences to global Network Manager tool</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Extension Pack Manager was moved from global preferences to global tools</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Improved overall accessibility</para>
      </listitem>

      <listitem>
        <para>GUI: Migrating to recent Qt versions.</para>
      </listitem>

    </itemizedlist>
  </sect1>

</chapter>