How is clean testing performed on a Macintosh without virtualization?

Question

One of the things that I came across in Windows is when a plug-in or program for a web browser makes an assumption that something is installed, by default it is not always present in Windows. A great example would be .NET. Many people running Windows XP have never installed any versions of .NET, and therefore the installer must detect and fix this if necessary.

The way I tested this on Windows is to have a virtual machine with a snapshot of a clean, fixed, but otherwise untouched installation of XP or Vista or 7 or something else. When I finished testing, I just canceled all the changes from the moment I took the snapshot. It works great.

I'm developing something for the Macintosh, a platform that is very new to me, and I see that virtualization is not an option. It is explicitly prohibited in EULA Mac OS X, it is only allowed for Mac OS X Server, which does not need me to see how I am aimed at the final product, and the one program that I can see that can virtualize it - VirtualBox - only supports the server and actively holds any discussion of launching a consumer / client version of Mac OS X. And the only instructions that I find in this thread seem to be about using hacking programs that are very incompatible with the full -time gig I'm trying to do.

So it seems that virtualization is missing, but at different points I want or need to simulate what you like, install and run this software on a “clean” Macintosh. How do people usually do this? Just buy some Macintosh and use Time Machine? I think everything is wrong about it and everything just works?

To be clear

• I am not trying to run Mac OS X on a Windows computer. I have a Macintosh, I'm fine with Mac OS X virtualization on Apple hardware, I just don't see a way to make a non-Server version do this.
• I know that Mac OS X Server can be virtualized, but that’s not what I'm going to do.
• I know that there are unauthorized / unsupported methods for creating Mac OS X in virtualization programs such as VirtualBox, but for legal reasons I am not interested.
• My question is not "how can I do this?" but rather, "so this thing that I do on Windows seems impossible, usually on a Macintosh, so what do people do to achieve what I'm going to do?"

Answer 1

Since I am sitting here with many versions of various Windows virtual machines on my working machine, I really do not need this on a Mac. The biggest reason is how applications are deployed in packages on a Mac. Ideally, the installation is a copy, and the removal drags the application into the trash. On Windows, you have a lot more in common between applications that should be considered that most applications don't have on a Mac. Now, if you are writing a device driver or VPN client or something that should fall into these parts of the system, then you do not have that luxury.

Where I really feel the need for virtualization is when I want to configure different versions of OS X or do some regression check to see if the situation is really different from the XYX version

So, how do we achieve what you are going to do, by default it doesn’t matter because you don’t have the same risks due to application packages. Or, if you need, buy a bunch of external hard drives so they can be loaded and replaced if necessary. (I did this only once for two versions of OS X, so I cannot say that this is really an industry practice.)

Answer 2

You don’t need a second Mac, you can just install the second OS X installation on another partition or hard drive.

Answer 3

This is usually what you have a "test bed". Get a second Mac, clean a clean install, then install / redraw as needed.

Answer 4

I think everything is wrong and everything works?

This is not a good answer on my part, but kinda, yes! In fact, there are no frameworks that the user must have that are not installed by the application itself.

To make this a better answer , you can certainly virtualize OS X Client, say VMWare Fusion. From my answer to an older question :

VMWare Fusion can run client 10.5 / 10.6 virtual machines, but you will have to trick it during installation by editing the OS installation disc.

There are some problems with this method, which are listed by those who tried it (mainly due to the lack of 3D acceleration):

• DVD player error does not work (-70017)
• Most screen savers do not work.
• Front-loading on a black screen
• Recording a screen in Quicktime causes an error (OSStatus error -108)
• Sound doesn't work Error on all Mac os during virtualization
• System Profiler cannot find much information about system components.
• Slow startup time in a virtual environment 20 seconds

Depending on the requirements of your testing, they may or may not be unlocking for you.

To trick VMWare into thinking that the client disk 10.5 or 10.6 is actually a server, you need to edit the Fusion base image for the new virtual machines:

sudo bash cd "/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/isoimages" mkdir original mv darwin.iso tools-key.pub *.sig original sed "s/ServerVersion.plist/SystemVersion.plist/g" < original/darwin.iso > darwin.iso openssl genrsa -out tools-priv.pem 2048 openssl rsa -in tools-priv.pem -pubout -out tools-key.pub openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < darwin.iso > darwin.iso.sig for A in *.iso ; do openssl dgst -sha1 -sign tools-priv.pem < $A > $A.sig ; done exit 

Then to install the OS:

If you try to install it, an Eboot error will appear, so you need to proceed to the advanced installation by pressing F8. Then, during use, use -v -install and it should install.