VirtualBox 4.0 is the first beta of Oracle for download available, desktop Virtualization solutions for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X that supports a number of guests. The innovations in VirtualBox 4.0 Beta 1 includes new settings and a new format to improve the portability of virtual machines, support for the Open Virtualization Format Archive (OVA) and a redesigned user interface. VirtualBox 4.0 supports disk images in VMDK, VHD format and Parallels, VDI and VHD images can be enlarged and reduced in size.

The guest additions now allow to copy files directly to the file system of the host system. The Virtualization solution can be extended in version 4 of the so-called external packages (extpacks), and a first extpack called PUEL is already available, the USB 2.0 support, an RDP server and a PXE bootloader with E1000 support retrofit. In the announcement , the developers point out explicitly that this is an early test version that is suitable for production use non. Testers are due to regression to the last stable version 3.2.12 eighth before.