Virtualbox 4.3.26 made fully updated Windows 8.1 UNUSABLE

[pc_user86]

Hello to All
I'm running into a serious problem described below. I thank in advance to all of your for your time and all the help and information you can provide me.

-- Here the description: --
A few minutes ago I did a Virtualbox update to the 4.3.26 version, when I was prompted with the little update message from my current installation. Once clicked it downloaded the installer for me and installation was normal, but IMMEDIATELY installation finishes, internet went off, I noticed because the 'update also the Extension pack' message came and it could not get the latest package, there was no internet.

I restart the machine and it took a lot of time to restart (that is a very fast machine using SSD) when it finally did I logged in again, and the whole computer was frozen, the mouse cursor moves but there are no icons on my desktop and the task manager does not launch, I cannot open anything, I cannot click the start button, the whole system is paralyzed.

The computer is a 64-bit fully updated Windows 8.1 Pro, 8GB of RAM, Kaspersky 2015 Internet Security Antivirus

HERE IS THE WORST PART: I have also a personal laptop (64-bit fully updated Windows 8.1 Pro, 8GB of RAM, Kaspersky 2015 Internet Security Antivirus) and virtualbox IS NOT INSTALLED ON THE LAPTOP. As soon as I turned on the laptop, there was no internet, the option to connect to a wireless network disappeared and I could not even reach the wireless adapter settings, sharing center was empty. I believe it was the windows sycn feature (now disabled) because I'm using the same email account on both machines.

My desktop machine is dead, I cannot do anything in there, I don't have enabled the option to activate booting on safe mode or recovery mode, I don't know what to do. The laptop in the other hand was responsive, just no internet, the laptop was responsive enough so I could unsync the machine and switch to a local account instead of cloud. After a re-start the laptop had internet and everything is working fine.

I need to report this to the VirtualBox team, and ask for help about how to recover my desktop computer, at this time I cannot afford formatting that machine and safe-mode/recovery boots are apparently not enabled, I don't know what to do.

Thanks again, I really hope people respond soon.

[socratis]

I need to report this to the VirtualBox team

First of all, this is not the VirtualBox team. This is a user forum. Volunteers.

Second, all of these symptoms are not typical of a VirtualBox issue, but a more general problem in your host. Since the installation didn't even finish, I fail to see how VirtualBox could be causing all of these symptoms, since (on top of that), you're the only one reporting it. I would start by troubleshooting the host...

[pc_user86]

Hello

Thank you for your response. The installation on the host machine did finish, what I noticed was a problem with the internet as soon installation was completed and the new virtualbox opened up; I decided to restart the machine and then I ran into the problem described, I absolutely think this is a problem with virtualbox, the computer was perfectly fine before the installation.

Thanks

[socratis]

Oh, I see, the installation finished. In that case disable/uninstall Kaspersky temporarily. It has been reported already a couple of times in the last couple of days, with the exact same symptoms as you describe.

[khae]

I had a similar problem. After updating to 4.3.26, Windows failed to access the IP stack, resulting in zero connectivity. Deinstalling the new version didn't work, and after rebooting the USB devices (keyboard, mouse) stopped working as well.

Since I needed a quick solution I recovered the system from a recent backup; I am also running Kaspersky, so the problem might originate from there. My advice would be to restore a backup, too, and troubleshoot later.

[nofearlessness]

I am getting into same problem.
I was able to reproduce 2 times.
1st time i installed .x26 version and it crashed my windows8.1 , i restored windows 8.1 with thought that some other problem.
Now this second time installed with freshly downloaded virtual box installer , installed successfully , restarted windows and not able to start.
Here is stack of my system
Windows 8.1 on corei7 with 16gb memory
Successfully running virtualbox version x22 along side kesperskey antivirus.
Anyone is looking into this issue ......

Thanks

[BillG]

Maybe Kapersky is, but I doubt it.

[VideOD]

Yes, I have the same issue with the latest update. Locked up my PC bad and had to do a system restore. Any thoughts? (Windows 8.1 home)

RE: installed this version - VirtualBox-4.3.28-100309-Win.exe

I do have Kaspersky installed as well, but that shouldn't affect the install afaik.

[michaln]

I do have Kaspersky installed as well, but that shouldn't affect the install afaik.

It does, unfortunately. Please contact Kaspersky about it, we don't think it's something Oracle can fix.

[jcejohnson]

I had exactly the same problem yesterday and this morning.

Yesterday I loaded 4.3.26 on a fully updated Windows 8.1 with Kaspersky already installed. Prior to the update everything was working fine. After the update's reboot logging into Windows gave me a black screen with a mouse pointer and nothing else.

I reloaded the OS from the recovery partition and let Windows install its updates. I did *not* reinstall Kaspersky or anything else other than Chrome.

This morning I loaded 4.3.26 again -- still no Kaspersky -- and exactly the same thing happened.

Kaspersky may be contributing to some users and may have caused my first issue but not this morning's disaster. I'm getting tired of reloading Windows :-/

[Jong33]

I've just experienced exactly what you've described above (Win 8.1 x64 16gb ram ssd kaspersky 15)

After updating to 4.3.28 100309, I launched my Ubuntu VM, and noticed its network wasn't functioning. The network on windows wasn't functioning too, although the adapter appeared to be working perfectly.
So I said, meh, lets restart. But the restart took too long, and after booting (which took a while, too) I simply get a blank black screen, with only the cursor showing up. If I hit ctrl+alt+del, I can try to sign out/power off, but both get windows stuck on the sign out/power off animation.

I tried booting into safe mode, to disable vbox from loading on boot, but it didn't work out very well (apparently, windows is loading "too fast" due to being on an SSD...)

I tried booting from my windows CD. System Restore didn't work, so I launched the command prompt and tried:
* regedit - regedit opens, but it operates on the hive from the CD. The "Load Hive" option from the menu is disabled, so I couldn't get it to load my C:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM hive
* wmic - tried

Code: Select all

product where name = "Virtual Box" call uninstall

but it didn't work (I guess wmic, too, fails to operate on the main drive)

Do I have any other solution, other than deleting the vbox drivers from C:\Windows\System32\drivers\VBox*.sys? Which is exactly what I'm going to try now

[Jong33]

Me again. From the windows this time

My last idea worked well. Just get access to modify files on your drive (either by getting a shell access after running windows from a CD, or by taking the drive out of the PC or w/e)
Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers and rename all VBox*.sys files (never a good idea to *delete* drivers). I simply prefixed each with an underscore, just so the driver loader won't find the files and won't load them. Windows booted fine, and I deleted vbox away (until I'm sure this issue isn't gonna float back again).