It is possible to have several different virtual machines running different guest operating systems under a sinlge host operating system.

Guest Operating System – The guest operating system is the OS that the Virtual Machine will run.įor example, in this tutorial, Windows 7 will be the host operating system and Windows 10 will be the guest operating system.

Host Operating System – The host operating system is the main operating system used to boot up the computer.

The two main concepts to understand before getting started are: We can also make copies (Clone) VM’s, save their state and share VM’s with others. VM’s can be started and stopped any time and multiple VMs (with the same or different operating systems) can run at the same time. VM’s are easy to work with since the host operating system does not need to shut down in order to run a VM.

Software development across operating systems can be accomplished without having to reboot the computer.

New operating systems and software can be tested without changing anything on the original computer.

An example of this is running Microsoft Access on a Mac.

Software available for only one operating system can be run within another OS.

VM’s are helpful for a number of reasons: The VM uses a portion of the host computer’s RAM, a part of the hard disk and some of its CPU time. The purpose of this tutorial is to demonstrate how to set up a Windows 10 Virtual Machine (VM) using the Oracle VirtualBox software.Ī Virtual Machine (VM) is a fully running copy of an operating system that runs concurrently (at the same time) with the host operating system.

Iso windows 10 virtualbox