Running other operating systems on your Mac using VirtualBox

Even the most dedicated Mac user can’t always fully escape Windows. But there’s an easy way to run Windows on your Mac, without having to reboot.  Software virtualization allows you to run a copy of Windows as a Virtual Machine on your Mac.   You don’t have to shutdown your Mac and reboot into windows, just fire up an application like Virtualbox, install a windows virtual machine, and you’re off and running.  You can also install other virtual machines, such as Linux, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 10, DOS, or even another copy of macOS, and run them all at the same time on your macOS desktop.

The performance of a virtual machine isn’t as great as running directly on dedicated hardware, but for those times you just have to run a Windows application, or when you want to test that latest version of macOS without risking your production environment, or if you want to learn Linux without giving up your existing macOS environment, or you want to experience the joy of having half a dozen virtual computers running on your laptop at the same time,  it’s the best solution.

More information about VirtualBox can be found here.