This week I switched the VM software I use from Parallels to VirtualBox. There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is that VirtualBox is free and I can put it on all the machines I want. Another reason is that I can share virtual disks etc with my Linux workstation that already has VirtualBox installed. I’ve been very happy with it on Linux, so I decided to try it out on my Mac and the results were great.

Since my primary computer is a Mac and I enjoy using my Delorme PN-60w to it’s fullest, I chose to run Topo North America 9.0 in a Windows virtual machine so management of maps etc is super easy. I had set this up without any issues using an XP virtual with Paralells, but VirtualBox and Windows 7 presented some obstacles. I’ll explain how to get it all working in a few easy steps.

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