Oracle Virtual Box - Create Virtual machine doesnt offer 64 bit OS choice - offers only 32 bit option

 Dear Readers,

This blog is about setting up 64bit Virtual machines on atleast 10 year old hardware based out of intel core 2 duo, see below image....

I needed to boot my old  desktop hardware  to substitute my laptop which is in service... which is when I realized, I didnt have an option to choose 64 bit version of OS under Oracle Virtualbox under create new VM (my lab), see below...

Now to enable the 64 bit os listing, we have to enable hardware virtualization to support resource sharing (cpu,memory,io,network,graphics etc..) between host OS and Virtualbox VMs.

In the above bios screenshot (you have to use F2 key to go to bios), please choose boot and enable the virtualization technique. For instance in my case it was "Intel(r) VT" which by default is in disabled mode, I enabled it and then "EXIT Saving the configuration". On reboot again, I could see the 64 bit virtualbox vms available now.

Hence always enable (in latest hardwares I guess it by default is enabled) the hardware virtualization to see 64bit OS versions available in your list.

Thanks