Installing VirtualBox Guest Additions in Windows 7 does nothing

[jcea]

Hi there.

My host is a 8GB Ubuntu 16.04 running VirtualBox 5.1.26. I have been running a Windows XP guest without problem for the last eight years.

I upgraded my host OS and I don't want to dual boot anymore (Ubuntu/Windows 7), so I copied the relevant harddisks partitions to a VDI image. After messing around a bit with "fdisk" and "grub", I am successfully booting Windows 7 as a guest. Slow running but Nice!. It is a Windows 7 x86-64 guest.

I proceed to uninstall most HP, Adobe, etc, crap, even the ATI video driver, the WIFI driver, etc. I reboot Windows 7 guest and everything works fine except sound (disabled) and network (drivers uninstalled). I insist that windows works fine, although harddisk performance is not stellar. I disabled Security Esencials and Windows Defender too.

After rebooting one more time, I install "VirtualBox Guest Additions" . Install finishes correctly and prompts to reboot. I reboot... and Windows 7 guest is working fine but... with no "VirtualBox Guest Additions", Nothing seems to happen. Host integration is not working and VirtualBox says that there are not guest additions running in the guest. I repeat install (it goes fine) and reboot. Same thing.

Checking the guest harddisk, I see "VirtualBox Guest Additions" directory with 19 files inside the "C:/Program files" directory. Everything seems ok. But the virtual machine is not enabling the Guest Additions.

I wonder if this is a Windows 7 32/64 issue but I lack the knowledge to debug this issue myself.

Please, Help!

Thanks in advance!.

[jcea]

Also, I verified that Windows system backups are disabled and system restoration service is disabled. Harddisk image is 30 GB, with 4 GB free.

[socratis]

• Follow a "start the VM from cold-boot" / "observe error" / "shutdown the VM" cycle. Check the system tray for the VirtualBox related icon. Is it there? Check also the Task Manager for any VBox*, virtual* processes.
• With the VM shut down completely (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response (see the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form).

[jcea]

1. There are NO icons related to VirtualBox in the system tray.

2. "control+alt+del" -> task manager. I don't see anything related to Virtualbox at all. I see unexpected processes, though, like an ATI process and several HP services. Unexpected because I supposedly deleted stale drivers from the physical/metal -> virtualbox transition of this windows install. They are not available in the "uninstall software" control panel, though.

3. I have included an attachment with the "VBox.log" file as a ZIP.

Thanks for your time!.

[socratis]

The only thing that the log confirms is that you have mounted the GAs CD, but no GAs are installed. Did you actually run the program (VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe) after you mounted the CD? I'm not sure if the P2V has anything to do with that. In my only actual P2V (a WinNT4 computer), the GAs installed and run just fine.

[mpack]

NT4 would have autorun enabled by default, as did XP. Win7 does not, so in the latter case just inserting the CD would do nothing. Being a P2V isn't relevant unless the user had at some time enabled autorun.

[jcea]

I did run it. I get prompted to authorize a couple of drivers, I can see the progress in the text window and, finally, I am prompted to reboot the system in order to activate the changes.

Nothing happens, nevertheless. The drivers are present in the guest harddisk, but no icons in the tray, no VBOX processes in the task manager and no guest additions detected in the host virtualbox process.

Maybe would be useful to post the installation text log, if it is accessible somewhere.

[jcea]

A couple of days ago there was another post in this thread about the very same issue, with a Windows 8.1 host (and Windows 7 guest). That post is not visible now, I don't know why. Maybe the poster deleted it for unknown reasons. I don't know.

[jcea]

Many tries, no luck. Instead of trying to virtualize a physical install, I finally did a new install inside virtualbox. Success. Guest tools OK. Let's move on.

Thanks.