Windows 10 - cant create host-only adapter 1

[takigama]

Hi All,

Im having an issue with Virtualbox on a windows 10 machine that i just cant solve. The first host-only adapter created in virtualbox is coming up as "VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter #2", rather than just "VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter".

Normally it wouldn't be much of an issue but i have a piece of software that is dependant on finding the later and i've tried many things to get it to create the right host-only adapter. There are a few articles out there about renaming adapters (all have varying degrees of success but none really work properly).

When i completely remove virtualbox and re-install, it still create adapter #2. I've tried removing it, clearing out everything virtual box has created on the machine and re-installing, but that hasn't solved anything so far.

Any suggestions would be most helpful!.

Regards, Paul

[mpack]

Clearly Windows believes you have had more than instance of this device class present, and didn't just (say) reflash the device.

Did or do you have a test build or beta build of VirtualBox previously installed? Or perhaps did you install this version of VirtualBox more than once? Is it a standard VirtualBox install? (Not portable VirtualBox, not Vagrant, not Genymotion).

I don't know how you would force Windows to name a device in a particular way. Probably there's some registry hack you can do.

[takigama]

Well its a had its fair share of virtual box installs and was originall a windows 7 machine that was upgraded

As to registry hacks, yeah, theres ones like this: http://www.fidian.com/problems-only-tyl ... rk-adapter

That has been rather unsuccessful though and i cant quite figure out why as theres nothing left in the registry that refers to #2 anymore.

[mpack]

That has been rather unsuccessful though and i cant quite figure out why as theres nothing left in the registry that refers to #2 anymore.

I'm not entirely sure what that means. I'm thinking in terms of a device description somewhere that remembers what ID was last assigned to a device. It's basically a plug and play host problem. Your host sees another device in the same class that isn't the same device, hence it assigns the #2 ID to it. You'd have to get rid of the other device in the same class.

Having a look through the device properties, you might want to uninstall VirtualBox and then search the registry for "sun_vboxnetadp", see what that field is part of, and delete the whole branch. You may want to back up your host OS first.

[takigama]

Having a look through the device properties, you might want to uninstall VirtualBox and then search the registry for "sun_vboxnetadp", see what that field is part of, and delete the whole branch. You may want to back up your host OS first.

ok, I gave that a shot, still no luck.

What i mean in my previous comment was that in that link he renames the device in the registry (not quite as easy in windows 10) and then virtualbox seems to pick up the change. In my case, that doesn/'t happen:

Code: Select all

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox>VBoxManage.exe list hostonlyifs
Name:            VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter #2
GUID:            006def34-e18c-4544-a22f-825624b7abfd
DHCP:            Disabled
IPAddress:       192.168.56.1
NetworkMask:     255.255.255.0
IPV6Address:     fe80:0000:0000:0000:c9f7:396f:532a:21f7
IPV6NetworkMaskPrefixLength: 64
HardwareAddress: 0a:00:27:00:00:22
MediumType:      Ethernet
Status:          Up
VBoxNetworkName: HostInterfaceNetworking-VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter #2

What i dont quite understand is where its even getting that name from anymore?

[takigama]

Well, still no luck so far...

However whatever stops this from working properly is very much a windows 10 thing... tested on 2008 server and 7, they chance without any issues (dont even have to reboot or anything, just instantly changes):


Tried it with 2 windows 10 machines, both fail, so there must be something obvious about how win10 deals with virtualbox, or drivers or even registry access that "breaks" it

[mpack]

I don't know what else I can usefully tell you. I have no such problem on the Win10 machine I'm using now, and I've already told you what I would have done, but apparantly that doesn't work.

Perhaps you could raise a BugTracker ticket, but tbh, without information on how to reproduce the problem - and why it matters outside of your unusual requirements - I'm not sure it will go anywhere.

Can you even tell us the details of what versions you previously had installed, on what version the problem first appeared, and whether your procedure is to install over the previous version or uninstall the previous version first? (there is no implication that anything you've done is wrong, the idea is to pin down how to make it happen).

Final thought: do you have full admin rights on this PC, and did you use "Run as administrator" to run the installer? (I'm wondering if inability to delete the old device driver during an update is a symptom of permissions issues).

[mpack]

I tried a bit of Googling for the general problem of unwanted numbers on network adapters.

Did you see this page? http://superuser.com/questions/323331/h ... ame-in-win

Specifically, scroll down to the third last answer which talks about using "View|Show Hidden Devices" in Device Manager, presumably you then delete the unwanted devices. This answer gets 0 votes but sounds a likely avenue for exploration to me.

[takigama]

Sorry, what i mean is that editing registry in win 10 doesnt work at all, in win 7, no problems it works (you can see the output in cmd above where i've changed it in between running the command). That i've tried with 3 win 10 machines now and definitely true, tho they are all up to date as well...

The other two win 10 machine DO create their first host only adapter correctly, i.e. "virtualbox host-only adapter .." without the #2, and the software itself works. The software in this case is a network simulator tool call eNSP.

That link on superuser is a little more interesting and there is one difference between what the "broken" machine is doing that the others arent. After cleaning out a few drivers and hidden adapters, that itself didnt help, but the way the adapter is being created is different. Prior to creating a host-only interface i have this:


After creating a host-only adapter, i end up with this:


Couple of things to note, editing the registry for the appropriate entries in win 7 - it works just fine, virtualbox picks up the change no problems and the adapters themselves work without issue. In windows 10, device manager does pick up the change made in the registry, but virtualbox doesnt so im a little mystified as to where vbox is getting its information from. Its almost like its reading an old version of a registry (or a cache or something similar but its quite persistent and retains that name across reboots).

Watching the vboxmanage process with procmon was not overly enlightening other than i can see it reading the registry.

Lastly, after removing the host only network i end up with this on the host:


Previous versions of vbox on this machine im really not sure, the ones i know have been on here: 4.2.36, 5.0.10, 5.0.20 and 5.0.22 but they'll have been more than this

Lastly, The thing using the isatap appears to be wifi host mode, have disabled that and it really didnt change much other then the first isatap adpter goes offline, but you can still definitely see it create adapter no 1, which then disappears, and adapter 2 appears when creating the first host-only network