Windows 8.1 built-in account Guest unable to start VB

[Marrie]

Hello,
I am new to VirtualBox using it for a couple of days and everything works fine. Today I like to try running it from the built-in account "Guest" on my Windows 8.1 host to increase security, unfortunately without success. I am attaching the screenshot of the crash window

2020-10-08 15_05_54-Program Manager.gif (108.08 KiB) Viewed 625 times

including the error log, since it is shown only partly in the screenshot.

Code: Select all

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	APPCRASH
  Application Name:	VirtualBox.exe
  Application Version:	6.1.14.40239
  Application Timestamp:	5f51ed81
  Fault Module Name:	CRYPT32.dll
  Fault Module Version:	6.3.9600.18653
  Fault Module Timestamp:	58de62bb
  Exception Code:	c0000005
  Exception Offset:	0000000000006fbd
  OS Version:	6.3.9600.2.0.0.256.4
  Locale ID:	1031
  Additional Information 1:	e929
  Additional Information 2:	e92941bbe5f7a6a20ad545faed61b0f7
  Additional Information 3:	09ff
  Additional Information 4:	09ffa3c6d0551cb3bf68569b726d8b1f

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Hope somebody has an idea what is the root cause and how to solve it. FYI, the Guest account in windows 8.1 does not have write access outside of its home directory. When I created another new user and added it to user group Guests, VB works fine. Thanks in advance.
Cheers.

[BillG]

You need admin privilege to install the VirtualBox program. In fact it is recommended that you use the Run as Administrator option to make sure that it installs with privilege. You do not need admin privilege to run VirtualBox, only to install it. It is best to install the program from the account you intend to run it from, so that the vm files and the logs are in your user directory.

[Marrie]

Thank you for your feedback, Bill.

You need admin privilege to install the VirtualBox program. In fact it is recommended that you use the Run as Administrator option to make sure that it installs with privilege. You do not need admin privilege to run VirtualBox, only to install it.

Yes, I did install VirtualBox with admin privilege. On my windows host, VirtualBox is installed under admin account for all users, and as I said in my first post, it also works fine for all standard users, except the built-in Guest account from windows.

It is best to install the program from the account you intend to run it from, so that the vm files and the logs are in your user directory.

As mentioned above, I installed it from admin account. Thus, I don't want to run it from admin account, because this would violate the General Security Principles to follow the principle of least privilege as recommended in the user documentation. So I am using it under standard user account which works fine, but I would like to reduce even the user privilege to Guest account which does not work as described in my first post.

[scottgus1]

built-in account "Guest"....the Guest account in windows 8.1 does not have write access outside of its home directory....another new user and added it to user group Guests, VB works fine

I have never used the "Guest" account, but the problem appears to not be in Virtualbox but in the permissions for the built-in Guest account vs the "Guests" group vs a normal standard user account. Virtualbox runs perfectly in a normal standard account, I used normal non-admin standard accounts on my Virtualbox hosts for years without hiccup.

On Windows hosts Virtualbox puts its configuration XML files in "C:\Users\{accountname}\.Virtualbox" (note the period in the folder name) and the guests default to go in "C:\Users\{accountname}\Virtualbox VMs". Check if your built-in "Guest" account has permissions to write in these folders.

It also could be entirely possible that Virtualbox has not been tested in the built-in "Guest "' account.

FWIW in my experience the account that is used to install Virtualbox does not matter. I have installed in one standard account and used it successfully in other standard accounts and admin accounts. Virtualbox has separate settings files for each account, but if the same guest is registered in multiple accounts it will still run.

[Marrie]

I have never used the "Guest" account, but the problem appears to not be in Virtualbox but in the permissions for the built-in Guest account vs the "Guests" group vs a normal standard user account. Virtualbox runs perfectly in a normal standard account, I used normal non-admin standard accounts on my Virtualbox hosts for years without hiccup.

Yes, this is my experience, too, as I described in my first post.

On Windows hosts Virtualbox puts its configuration XML files in "C:\Users\{accountname}\.Virtualbox" (note the period in the folder name) and the guests default to go in "C:\Users\{accountname}\Virtualbox VMs". Check if your built-in "Guest" account has permissions to write in these folders.

Yes, built-in Guest account has write access to "C:\Users\Guest\*", as this is its home directory. I also tested to create .Virtualbox myself and it worked.

It also could be entirely possible that Virtualbox has not been tested in the built-in "Guest "' account.

So there is no use case that I can grant my friend temporary access to my computer via Guest account, and in addition allow him/her to work only in a VM? I don't like to create a standard user for this use case, because you can still be messing around even with a standard user account without system privilege.