In this guide, we shall discuss how to install virtual machine Guest Addition. The Virtual Machine Guest Addition is a very vital component to be installed on a VM in order to enable more advanced functionalities (capabilities) of a VM. Please see how to Add or delete users and set permissions in Azure AD, how to upgrade VMware Tools in vSphere, and How to extend a VM Hard Disk on VMware Workstation.
Installing the Guest Additions for a VM is essential for enhancing the performance and usability of a VM running in a hypervisor like Oracle VirtualBox.
Guest Additions provide several features, including improved graphics performance, shared folders, seamless mouse integration, and better overall VM performance
See this post to learn the reasons to have Virtual Machine Guest Addition installed on a VM. Also, see How to install Oracle VirtualBox on a Mac device, and “Ubuntu Linux post installation of Network Properties, Guest Integration and Web Administration using Cockpit“.
Install VM Guest addition
First, insert the virtual machine guest addition. Since I am demonstrating this on macOS, perform the following steps.
Click on Device, and then click on “Insert Virtual Machine Guest Addition CD”
After the Virtual machine Guest addition is mapped to the VM
Double click on the VBoxWindowsAddition as shown above.
This will launch the setup wizard to install the guest addition as shown below.
Decide a location to have the guest additions installed.
Click on next and continue through the installation
The components to install are already selected, click on install.
The installation process will continue and will prompt you to reboot after the installation is complete
Reboot VM
Now reboot the VM, and this will have the VM guest additions applied to your VM.
Now, you will now be able to perform advanced functionalities such as copying between host and VM etc.
I hope you found this article on how to install virtual machine Guest Addition very useful. Please feel free to leave a comment below.
