Complete uninstall problem

[secant]

I have a non administrator account in which Virtualbox was installed successfully on my account. However when I tried to uninstall on the same account using the "Virtualbox_uninstall.tool" which requires my administrator password will not work because I do not allow "user to administrator the account"". So to correct for this I log in as an administrator and uninstall successfully.

However when I went to install Virtualbox 6 I reconized my old config for some reason. How can I completely remove everything related to Virtualbox on my High sierra Mac?

[andyp73]

Uninstalling VirtualBox the application doesn't delete any guests you may have created in the same way as uninstalling Microsoft Office wouldn't delete all your Word documents.

Your guests and their configuration files all live under /Users/<you>/VirtualBox VMs. You will have to manually delete them if you want them gone.

-Andy.

[socratis]

I have a non administrator account in which Virtualbox was installed successfully on my account

That is simply not possible! If you did manage to do it, that's a security hole!

You cannot install VirtualBox without an Admin account, and you can't install VirtualBox on any other location, except "/Applications/VirtualBox". We've been through this already. Care to explain a little bit better what's going on here?

So to correct for this I log in as an administrator and uninstall successfully.

Or you can try the alternative from the Terminal. After you've mounted the "VirtualBox-<version>-<revision>-OSX.DMG", open up a Terminal and switch to an admin account:

$ su <YourAdmin>
Password:
bash-3.2$ sudo /Volumes/VirtualBox/VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool
......

Saves me the logout/login process...

However when I went to install Virtualbox 6 I reconized my old config for some reason.

Not "for some reason", for a very good reason; the uninstall process doesn't remove your Preferences/Settings/Data. How could it? Go through each and every User on your installation and remove their Preferences/Settings/Data? I'm afraid that's a no-go.

You got to remove the files yourself. See ch. 10.1. Where VirtualBox stores its files of the User Manual.

[secant]

Andy.

The directory /Users/<my account>/VirtualBox I removed manually before uninstalling but it still gives the same error message when performing a complete uninstall.

[secant]

I have determine the problem. When I searched for virtualbox I found a couple of directories which I could not delete as administrator becuase it was protected by system integrity protection. I do not know how virtualbox was protected by the high sierras SIP protection but this prevented me from deleting and performing a clean install.

To correct the problem I disabled SIP then deleted the 2 directories.

[socratis]

I found a couple of directories which I could not delete as administrator becuase it was protected by system integrity protection

Names are needed. I've never seen this on 5 (FIVE) OSX hosts that I have access to. Please be as detailed as possible!

To correct the problem I disabled SIP then deleted the 2 directories.

That's the wrong advice I'm afraid. You should never, ever, have to disable SIP in order to (un)install VirtualBox.

[secant]

I agree. I should never have to disable SIP on a Mac to delete virtualbox but I had to disable SIP to delete 2 virtualbox directories. This is clearly some sort of hack.

If you attempt to delete a system fie on a MAC that is protected by SIP you get a message "the file cannot be modified or deleted because it is required by the MacOS" this is how I new virtualbox was some how incorporated with the operating system SIP.

You asked for the name of the files the folder was "virtualbox" with the following files vboxdrv.kext, vboxnetadp.net, vboxnetfit.kext,vboxusb.kext and another folder called vbox2.36.20 PM with files such as selectorwindow1 through 10,VBoxSVC.log through 10 ,virtualbox.xml, xpti.dat and a few jpeg files

[socratis]

the following files vboxdrv.kext, vboxnetadp.net, vboxnetfit.kext,vboxusb.kext

Those are the Kernel Extensions (kext) and they *definitely* don't need you to disable SIP.

Every VirtualBox comes in a DMG, "VirtualBox-<version>-<revision>-OSX.dmg". You mount it and just run "VirtualBox_Uninstall.tool" as a member of the "admin" group. That's all that's needed. No SIP disabling or anything like that, I think you made a mountain out of a molehill!

and another folder called vbox2.36.20 PM with files such as selectorwindow1 through 10,VBoxSVC.log through 10 ,virtualbox.xml, xpti.dat and a few jpeg files

Not sure what it was doing, but that sounds like a COPY of the "~/Library/VirtualBox" folder. Again, no way that this thing required SIP to be disabled.

In summary:
SIP does *NOT* need to be disabled in order to uninstall VirtualBox