Comments on: How to Install macOS Catalina on VirtualBox on Windows

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:11:07 +0000

I had an error because I am on Windows 11 using Ryzen 7. Specifically, 5800x3d.
This command fixed it.

VBoxManage modifyvm “VM NAME HERE” –cpu-profile “Intel Xeon X5482 3.20GHz”

By: Nik K

Nik K — Sun, 02 Jul 2023 12:32:15 +0000

IF you have a RYZEN cpu and the installation hangs during startup, open a cmd and type:
VBoxManage modifyvm “macos” –cpu-profile “Intel Core i7-6700K”
This will solve your problems

By: Blake

Blake — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 14:13:19 +0000

Great instructions. I still got an SMC error when starting. I had to also run this:

cd “C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\”
VBoxManage.exe setextradata “VM name” “VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC” 0

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 20 Jan 2023 05:07:55 +0000

In reply to Haider.

I have another solution for VERR_INVALID_HANDLE.

My PC is running Windows 10 Pro 21H1, cpu Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz 3.50 GHz

The required file VBox-MacOS-Setup-Commands.bat (within Commands-bats.zip) already has “…GetKeyFromRealSMC” with a trailing digit one so this wasn’t a solution for me.

I followed the steps by user Jeff (November 9, 2021 at 4:54 AM), with a slight variation: I wanted to know what the “hypervisorlaunchtype” was set to before changing it, in case it didn’t solve the problem. To do this, follow Jeff’s instruction to launch CMD as Administrator and simply type in:

bcdedit

then look for the line “hypervisorlaunchtype” which is probably the very last thing displayed. I made a note that for my system it was set to “Auto”.

Proceed with Jeff’s instructions:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

and reboot your PC.

By: John B

John B — Thu, 10 Nov 2022 18:27:54 +0000

In reply to Ferry. This fixed for ryzen nitro5 thaaaaanks!!!!

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 16:38:02 +0000

I can’t install Catalina because whenever I try it tells me the following error message:

“This copy of the INstall macOS Catalina Beta application is damaged and can’t be used to install macOS”

I read it had to do with changing the time in the GuestOS but I don’t know how. Any ideas?

By: Haider

Haider — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 04:44:37 +0000

If you get error after first run with description as bellow
Failed to query SMC value from the host (VERR_INVALID_HANDLE).

change value 0 to in in below command

VBoxManage setextradata “VM Name” “VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC” 1

By: Caxtin

Caxtin — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 03:30:01 +0000

After a few years trying to have a MacOS VM, I finally got it done.
However, at startup and shut down, I still have the long black screen with texts. On start, it runs through long texted black screen before opening; same as during closing, every time. That’s kinda annoying. Any solution?
Thanks

By: Victor

Victor — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:33:45 +0000

Thank you for the great tutorial. I tried another one a couple of months before and didn’t worked, the system was extremely laggy.

This tutorial does work, however you have to be patient during the installation since it took hours.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 20:08:06 +0000

Thanks a lot for this!
Just installed Catalina on a Linux host, following the same steps. Had the “[EB|#LOG:EXITBS:START] (AND CURRENT DATE/TIME)” issued and the suggested fix did the job, even tough I have a AMD Ryzen 7. I just had to change the syntax due to bash expansion. Specifically I used:

VBoxManage modifyvm VM\ Name –cpu-profile Intel\ Xeon\ X5482\ 3.20GHz

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 20:54:29 +0000

THIS CAN HELP YOU
After hours of unsuccessful trials and never ending looping text, here is what did the trick for me:
My config is Intel i9 and Windows 21H1.
At first, you have to make sure the hypervisor is off in Windows, otherwise it won’t work or it can be very sluggish in Virtualbox.
In CMD (admin mode), here is the command to turn it off, just in case:
bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off
Reboot your PC.

THE MOST IMPORTANT to be able to boot on the CD, and then reboot to finish the install on step 8, you have to configure your storage disks as follow:
macOS Catalina ISO optical drive = SATA Port 0
Hard Disk VHD = SATA Port 1
N.B. Never check the option “Solid-state Drive”, even if your physical disk is an SSD

It should only take about 2mn before you can boot and get the Apple logo.
If ever you can’t boot and you get the “shell”, type “exit”.
In the menu, select Boot manager maintenance.
Then manually select the file “boot.efi” to lauch the install, which is located in
System / Library / CoreServices / boot.efi

By: Cody A Muller

Cody A Muller — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 05:27:59 +0000

Keyboard not working. HELPPPP!!!!

By: Crowmack

Crowmack — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:39:36 +0000

I had a problem where after following all of these steps Virtualbox would boot into an UEFI shell.

I fixed it by following this youtube clip..Hope this helps anyone else having the same issue.

By: James McCarte

James McCarte — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 21:42:56 +0000

Can’t get it to work at all in VirtualBox. I can get Mojave and Big Sur to work, but not Catalina. I get an “in memory Panic stackshot succeeded” and then it sits there trying to restart