Update disaster leading to system recovery

[Cam1]

Hello,

Big problem. I tried Windows 10, got Virtualbox working, other aspects of Windows 10 were too glitch-filled to endure. I went back to Windows 8.1 and that was fatal for Virtualbox.

First, it wouldn't run. It gave an error message about being unable to find a file or folder. (Can't reproduce the error message now because my attempts to fix the problem have led to a circumstance where no message appears at all; now Virtualbox simply does nothing - just the spinning 'wait' icon then nothing.)

Naturally, I tried to re-install, feeling confident that Virtualbox would do that. Not only could it not, but moreover the results were disastrous, and led to my having to do a Windows system recovery two times. For this reason, please don't suggest that I try uninstalling and re-installing. Here's what happened:

The update involves uninstalling the old version as a necessary aspect of the update process. Unfortunately, part of the uninstall process involves shutting down the ability of the computer to communicate with the Internet. (I don't mean the server connection, which remains intact, but it suspends the ability of the computer to use a web-browser, e-mail or remote desktop application -- all of which I tried to use.) Virtualbox, as I said, warns that it will do this on a temporary basis, but because the process aborts it remains permanent!! I tried many ways around the problem, but in the end had to recover the system -- an hour long process -- to get back to a computer that would communicate with the outside world.

Short story: I can't manually uninstall the program. I've tried deleting the Oracle Virtualbox key from the registry so that the uninstall data SHOULD have been sidestepped. That didn't work. I've deleted the system drivers and registry keys to those drivers. That didn't work. No matter what I do, when I try to run the install program it always says it can't find the .msi file. I would give you the full name, but do so I would have to run the uninstall and after the last two disasters I won't try that.

Finally, I also found among the drivers in Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections and driver called VirtualBox Host-Only Network.

If someone can tell me how to manually over-ride / fix what the uninstall program does to the computer's Internet connection I would be willing to face the ordeal again, but not until I've seen that the necessary switch can be flipped from the registry or a utility.

Any ideas? I'd like to get Virtualbox working again as I'm very fond of it.

Kind regards,

Cam

[Cam1]

Does no one have any insight to offer?

What I particularly want to know is how to re-connect the browser which Virtualbox Install disconnects. Unless I know how to do this, I don't dare try to re-install Virtualbox since -- as I mentioned -- doing so caused me to have to conduct a full Windows 8.1 recovery, not once but twice.

[Zeb89]

I don't understand what is the recovery...