Windows 7 Guest Unstable on OS X Host

[BrettR]

I'm experiencing an issue with my Windows 7 guest not running stably on an OS X host. I have removed the Windows 7 virtual machine and installed a new machine from scratch 3 times -- experienced this instability each time. I receive an error message from VirtualBox in OS X that a fault was experienced and the virtual machine needs to shut down. 2 of the 3 times this has occurred while installing the initial round of Windows Updates i.e. I have had several hours of uptime in the Windows 7 guest before the fault.

The ISO is an official Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 x64 disk image and my Product Key is genuine. I am running VirtualBox version 5.1.4 r110228 on OS X 10.11.6 El Capitan.

During initial virtual machine setup I don't modify any of the default settings except available RAM from 512MB to 4096MB. I've attempted to find out if anybody else is experiencing a similar issue but haven't come up with anything.

I've tried to include all relevant information, please advise if additional is required. Any ideas on what the fix may be? I attached the VirtualBox log that was generated.

[mpack]

You are getting the VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED exception, apparantly related to questionable software running in the VM, and all on Mac hosts. There have been a few tickets raised about this already, so I suggest that you keep track of those.

Why do you still have the installer ISO mounted in the VM? Are you still trying to install Win7? Why? If you are having stability problems with an installed Win7 then we need to see evidence for that, rather than any peripheral problems you are having reinstalling the OS.

[BrettR]

You are getting the VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED exception, apparantly related to questionable software running in the VM, and all on Mac hosts. There have been a few tickets raised about this already, so I suggest that you keep track of those.

Why do you still have the installer ISO mounted in the VM? Are you still trying to install Win7? Why? If you are having stability problems with an installed Win7 then we need to see evidence for that, rather than any peripheral problems you are having reinstalling the OS.

I have the ISO mounted still since I had just installed Windows 7 & immediately went to installing Windows Updates.

As far as the stability problems and when they're occurring, on my 1st install of Windows I would just close out the VirtualBox fatal errors when they occurred and start Windows 7 again. I finished installing all of the Windows Updates, experienced more VirtualBox fatal errors, installed Guest Additions, didn't install any other software, and would experience fatal errors after some period of Guest uptime. Unfortunately, I didn't save those logs.

I haven't installed any other software beyond Windows Updates so not sure why the VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED exception is occurring. I'll keep an eye out on those tickets.

EDIT: Is there an older version of VirtualBox (for OS X) that may have better success in the meantime?

[BrettR]

Update: I am posting what I've done in order to use VirtualBox without it crashing on me. I've installed Windows 7 SP1 as a guest account on an OS X host. I have disabled Windows Update from running i.e. I am running on pure SP1. My uptime since doing this has not been impeded by the error mentioned in the previous posts. I've used a number of engineering tools without any crashes to the Windows 7 guest or the VirtualBox host software. I also installed Windows Security Essentials since I don't have any of Microsoft's updates since SP1 for Windows 7.

Hopefully this bug in VirtualBox will be addressed soon!

[BrettR]

EDIT: The errors have persisted. I uninstalled VirtualBox 5.1.6, then installed 4.3.40 r110317 and tested a fresh Win 7 guest install extensively. I experienced no problems so will submit this bug to the tracker.

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15969

[cinergi]

Hello,

Same problem here: VERR_IEM_INSTR_NOT_IMPLEMENTED error in log files. My Windows 7 x64 guest OS running on VirtualBox 5.1.6 on macOS Sierra randomly crashes with this error. It does seem to happen more often while installing Windows updates. Due to this same error, I am also unable to upgrade to Windows 10 because the VM crashes during the upgrade.

I've downgraded to VirtualBox v5.0.26, which works perfectly for me and never crashes. The issue seems limited to the v5.1.x releases. It seems like a major bug to me, I'm surprised it hasn't been fixed yet.

-cinergi

[socratis]

I'm surprised it hasn't been fixed yet.

Why? There are only three people that have reported this on the bugtracker, two of them provided logs and two (including you) said "me too". Within 5 weeks. So,
- it's not widespread.
- the people that are facing it are not ... contributing.
- it's too soon to have a hotfix, *if* they've discovered what's wrong with it.
But if a hotfix were available, it would be in the Test Builds area: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Testbuilds
Give it a shot...

[cinergi]

I'm not complaining; sorry if I gave that impression. I realize this is a free product and I am grateful for it. I just assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the issue is widespread, since there's nothing special about my configuration and there are surely many people like me running Windows 7 or 10 guest OSes on a macOS host (as demonstrated by the success of paid Mac virtualization software like Parallels). I am myself a former Parallels user, but got tired of having to pay to upgrade to a new version with every new macOS release.

For now, VirtualBox v5.0.26 is working fine for me so I will revisit the 5.1.x releases (and beyond) at a later date, by which time hopefully the issue will have been resolved.

Thanks,
cinergi

[socratis]

But I wasn't addressing you as if you were complaining. Sorry if you understood it as such, it wasn't my intention

No, the main problem is that it is not that widespread. There are thousands and thousands of users that use this setup; OSX host, Win7/10 guests. *I* have a Mac. I run all sorts of guests, and specifically for MS-based systems, I believe I've got everything from DOS (yes, it was a pain to convert those 5 1/4 floppies) to Win10 32/64-bit. Never seen the problem.

We (as users) do not have enough data points to come to any useful conclusions. Since I'm a Mac advocate (not a zealot), I'm trying hard to have Mac users have the best VirtualBox experience on a Mac. That's why I said there are not enough reports to make the diagnosis.

Speaking of, where's your VBox.log?

[BrettR]

I have been running VirtualBox 4.3.40 on OS X 10.11.6, Windows 7 guest, for a while now without issue. If I update to the latest version of VirtualBox and to macOS Sierra is it reasonable to expect the same VirtualBox error as detailed in my original post? I've looked through the VirtualBox changelogs and https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15801 but haven't uncovered anything addressing the bug I experienced.

[socratis]

I have been running VirtualBox 4.3.40 on OS X 10.11.6, Windows 7 guest, for a while now without issue. If I update to the latest version of VirtualBox and to macOS Sierra is it reasonable to expect the same VirtualBox error as detailed in my original post?

Nobody will know but you. You're one of the few people that have reported this specific bug. No one so far knows why you're seeing it and no one else is experiencing it. So, I'm not sure there can be a definitive answer.

The best thing to do in my opinion is to upgrade to 10.12 only, since you cannot revert easily from that. Run it with your current 4.3.40 for a couple of weeks or less, then upgrade to 5.1.10 (the latest as of now) and see how it goes. If you don't like it / you have issues, you can always revert to 4.3.40.

[DualShock]

Came across this thread again. I had been experiencing the same issue, as described in this thread which I posted a while back:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=79090

I just recently had a thought about why this issue is occurring in 5.1.x, and not in 5.0.x and earlier. The Mac I experienced the issue on was a 2008 Mac Pro, which has dual Xeon E5462 CPU's. These CPU's are essentially Core 2 Quad's, and thus don't have Nested Paging support (just the original VT-x).

As mentioned in this ticket:

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/15801

unchecking Nested Paging resolves the issue. I am not able to test this out to see if it works, because I am in the process of decommissioning my Mac Pro. Indeed, as described in the ticket, the user has a 2009 MacBook Pro, which would most likely have a Core 2 Duo CPU. I also noticed that on my new machine (Windows 10 on a Skylake CPU), this issue does not occur. Maybe something changed between 5.0.x and 5.1.x with respect to nested paging support detection on these older CPU's?