However, the running applications won’t appear on your operating system’s standard taskbar. VirtualBox will hide the guest operating system’s desktop background, making it seem as if the guest operating system’s programs are running on the host operating system’s desktop. You can also just click the View menu and select Switch to Seamless Mode. To use this feature, press the “Host key” - normally the right Ctrl key, but it’s displayed at the bottom-right corner of the virtual machine window - and L at the same time. You’ll be prompted to install the software. If you haven’t done this already, boot up the virtual machine, click the Devices menu, and select Install guest additions. If you manage to get Mac OS X running in a VirtualBox virtual machine or you’re using a niche operating system like Haiku, you won’t be able to use this feature.īefore using this feature, you must install the VirtualBox Guest Additions software package inside the guest virtual machine you want to do this with. Note that VirtualBox only allows you to use this feature with Windows, Linux, and Solaris guests. RELATED: 4+ Ways to Run Windows Software on Linux Using VirtualBox’s Seamless Mode

You can seamlessly run Windows programs on your Linux desktop or run Linux software on a Windows one. These tricks work whether you’re using Windows, Linux, or Mac. The programs are still sandboxed so they won’t have access to your host operating system’s files - they just appear to be running on the host operating system. They’ll appear to be running as if they were running on your host operating system, but the virtual machine is still running in the background. You start up your virtual machine, launch the programs you want to use, and then enable “Seamless Mode” or “Unity Mode.” The guest operating system’s desktop and the virtual machine window will vanish, leaving the guest operating system’s windows on your desktop.

How to use virtualbox on mac