Run a Virtual Machine on your Mac for free
What actually is a VM?
A VM is a virtual machine that runs inside a contained environment, using software to emulate a physical computer, letting you install an operating system and use it just like a regular computer.
So you may be saying to yourself, why would I want to do this? Well the answer to that is that there is a number of reasons as to why you may want to use a VM.
- Software development and testing
- Running applications that do not run on your native OS
- Trying out different operating systems
- Testing settings to see the effects, without hurting your physical machine
- and more
I use a VM for all of the above, and to be honest I don’t know how I lived without one!
So I thought I would show you how to setup a VM on your own computer for free using Virtual Box from Oracle.
First we need to download Virtual Box from Oracle’s website, click the link below to grab the installer…
Once you have installed Virtual Box we can get what we need to start a virtual machine. We first need a OS (Operating System), in this article I’m going to use Microsoft Windows 10.
Obviously we do not have a physical disc drive or USBs to attached a USB stick with a VM (even though you can when installed) so we need a OS ISO file. An ISO file is a disc image of a physical install disc of a OS.
Microsoft let you download a ISO of Windows 10 for free from their website at the below link…
Select your edition and click confirm.
Then select your language and click confirm again.
You will then need to select either 32bit or 64bit (if your machine is 64bit then select 64bit)
The ISO should now download, this can take a while depending on your internet speed, as this ISO is rather large (around 5GB)
Once the ISO file has downloaded we can now prepare our Virtual Box to install Windows.
Open Virtual Box and you should see the below window…
Click the New icon from the toolbar at the top of the window, you should now see the below window…
Virtual Box now whats you to name your VM, in the name textbox type in Windows 10. You will notice that Virtual Box automatically changes the version type for you.
Click Continue to move to the next window, you should now see the Memory Size window. This is where you can set the VM’s memory (RAM) by default Virtual Box will set the RAM to 2048mb this is more than enough for testing software etc, but if you are wanting to play a game or something else more RAM hungry then you may wish to increase this. For now we will just leave it at 2048 (2GB).
Click Continue, you should now see the Hard Disk window, by default Virtual Box will create a virtual HDD of 50GB, make sure you check the option ‘Create a virtual hard disk now’ and click Create.
You should now have a window named Hard Disk File Type, keep the default setting of VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click Continue.
The next window should now ask you about how you want to store data to the physical hard disk, you have the option to have it Dynamically allocated which means if more storage is needed in the future the HDD size will grow to suit, or you can select fixed which will not grow automatically, Click Continue.
The next window is the File Location and Size window, this is where you can choose where to store your VM on your HDD, I suggest leaving it as default in the VirtualBox VM’s directory. Here you can also adjust the HDD size (default is 50GB).
Thats it! We have now fully setup a VM thats ready to boot, you should now see the below window…
Have a quick check over your settings, make sure they are as you want them (you can always change these later anyway) and click Start from the toolbar at the top of the window.
If you are running this for the first time on a Mac then you will be asked by macOS to give permissions to Virtual Box, give all the permissions it needs to run then click start again!
You should now see the below window…
Click the CD icon at the bottom of your VM window like the below…
Click on Choose a Disc File, then select your Windows 10.iso file (should be in your downloads file).
Now we need to restart the VM, we need to do this because the VM didn’t know how to boot as it had no OS installed. All we are doing here is inserting a CD/DVD into the drive for it to boot the install process virtually.
You should now have the below window asking to input your Windows setting as you would expect.
Adjust your settings accordingly and let Windows install to your VM.
- Note your window may be small, this is because the graphics drivers have not been installed yet, this will change when Windows has finished installing.
After the install has finished you should now be presented with the windows 10 Desktop as you would expect.
That’s it, you have now installed Windows on a VM, you can use this now how you would any other Windows computer.
Now you know how to setup a VM you can download any OS ISO’s and try them out, such as Linux, the process is the same.
I hope you find this useful and if you have any questions please feel free to ask me on Twitter @BIG_PESH or on here in the comments.
Happy Virtual Machining!
