VirtualBox is a free virtualizer that can be used for any number of operating systems. You might experience some hiccups when it comes to your display and plugging in USB devices.

Microsoft says that its virtual machine expires after 90 days, but if I remember correctly it doesn’t explode at the end of 90 days or anything, it just reminds you to download a new one.

So it’s not like you can turn your Mac into a gaming PC with this guide, the specs just aren’t there.

And this is going to pull from your Mac’s RAM and video memory, using up its own resources while in the virtual environment.

This is mostly to run small Windows-based programs that won’t work on your Mac, like in the Monkey Island voice tracks guide I published the other day.

Additionally, the default max size of a virtual machine in this guide is 40GB, so you cannot use this virtual machine to store large files. You’re going to need about 40GB of free space on your Mac in order to host a Windows virtual machine.So this quick guide will show you how to set up a virtual machine to run Windows within your Mac - for free.

But instead of going out and buying (or building) a PC of your own, any Mac built after 2007 or so is perfectly capable of running Windows in a virtual environment.

As a longtime Mac user (nearly 20 years and counting), I understand the frustration of not being able to access every program that PC users have at their disposal. Many of the specialized programs needed to configure emulators and ROMs for your retro game collection are only available on Windows PCs.

Virtual machine for mac to run windows