If you use VirtualBox you might check out a few BIOS settings regarding virtualization. Running a 64 bit guest OS needs you to enable the VT-settings (on my HP ProBook 6550b it's called "Virtualization Technology setting"). On other notebooks it might be called otherwise. Make sure you reboot your OS. Another thing to consider is so called "trusted execution" or "Data Execution Prevention". Of course you want this enabled to be more secure against mal-ware. However it turns out that it is quite a performance-drain when using VirtualBox. A colleague who tipped me told that he copied a VM with SOASuite to his new laptop, where Weblogic need 15 minutes to start! After a change in the settings he managed to decrease this to 5 minutes. Which is pretty normal for a Weblogic startup. He couldn't remember the settings, it had something to do with "security". So I turned "Data Execution Prevention" (as it is called on my HP) off and it turns out that my complete VM "feels" faster. I did not time my VM yet, but it seems to cope with the performance improvement of my colleague (thanks).