Installing the Extension Pack on the Host OS
The first step is installing the Extension Pack corresponding to the version of VirtualBox you’re running. There are a couple of ways to kick off this process, but the actual installation is the same for all of them. Now that the Extension Pack is installed on the host OS, you can restart VirtualBox to have access to any of the features listed earlier in this article.
What Is the VirtualBox Extension Pack?
As the name suggests, the Extension Pack an add-on that you install first on your machine’s main OS (called the host, where OS you’ll be running is the guest ). It includes a number of drivers and other software that help better integrate the two systems, such as:
If you have USB 2 or 3 devices plugged into the host machine that you want the guest to be able to access, you’ll need the Extension Pack. If you’re concerned about the security of your guest OS, you can encrypt it if you have the Extension Pack installed. It’s common to want to access your guest OS from another machine, for example if you’re running it on a network server. The Extension Pack adds the ability to remote into the guest OS via RDP. Suppose you have a webcam that only has drivers available for Windows, but you want to use it with a piece of macOS software. In this case you’ll need the Extension Pack to pass the webcam’s video through to the guest.
