Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable Package

[Russw]

Yes, win 7 is growing old. I was just wondering what changed in the vb .10 installer that .8 worked but .10 doesn't. No doubt is some win 7 issue. Guess I'll just stick with vb .8.

[scottgus1]

The 7.0.10 installer worked fine for me in an upgrade from 7.0.8. And it worked fine in a fresh install in fth0's test. If there was something broken in the installer regarding the runtime, a lot more complaints about it than this would be seen in the forum.

So I'd say nothing changed in the installer on the runtime front, and your host OS has something wrong with it. How to diagnose that something is beyond me, though.

[Russw]

If it was my OS, then 7.0.8 shouldn't have installed either, or 7.0.6. It won't install because of a missing prerequisite that is actually already installed, so something changed in this installer. I'm not saying it's broken, I'm just saying something changed. Obviously it has something to do with Win 7, but if Win 7 isn't officially supported anymore by VB, then I don't have grounds to push it any further and I'll just live with it. Thanks.

[fth0]

Well, there is a way to proceed. Do the following with both the 7.0.8 and 7.0.10 installers:

To analyze VirtualBox Windows installer issues, please enable logging with the following simple method: Download the VirtualBox Windows installer image (e.g. VirtualBox-7.0.10-158379-Win.exe), open a Windows Command Prompt with normal user privileges, navigate to the Downloads folder and run the installation with the following commands:

Code: Select all

cd Downloads
VirtualBox-7.0.10-158379-Win.exe --logging --msi-log-file VBoxInstallLog.txt

Afterwards, provide a zip file with both installation log files.

[Russw]

Oh ok. Zip file with both log files attached.
7.0.8 was a fresh install, 7.0.10 was an upgrade install.

[Boxy]

Don't know if it fits, but I had a similar problem a year ago when I run another application (not related to Virtualbox) in Win 7. This application was rebuild under a newer Visual Studio in Win 10, after I did an update in my Win 7, the application ended with an error.

As far as I remember, the Visual Studio (Visual C++ runtime is part of it) relates on Windows delivered libraries, the application is linked against the Visual C++ runtime (or "redistributable package") and Visual C++ runtime lib functions call stub libraries that lead to Windows libraries (or Windows stub libraries that lead to the real Windows libraries, e.g. kernel32.dll, OleAut32.dll a.s.o.).

Now MS develops Visual Studio in a forward direction, so it fits in a serviced Windows 10 library environment that is updated by annual "Feature Updates" and KB... fixes - but doesn't port these newer Windows 10 internal library functions backward to Windows 7 - out of service.

In my case, the application called a function "GetErrorInfo" that lead to a lib api-ms-win-downlevel-ole32-l1-1-1.dll, but in Windows 7 I found api-ms-win-downlevel-ole32-l1-1-0.dll, that didn't contain this function.

I tried many things, including an Win 7 update by KB2952664 ("Telemetry"), it brought a new api-ms-win-downlevel-ole32-l1-1-1.dll to Win 7 containing this function. But without success, as Visual C++ runtime continued to use the older api-ms-win-downlevel-ole32-l1-1-0.dll, no matter what I did - some of the Windows internal search paths are hardcoded.

After I found these dependencies (many hours with "Dependency Walker"), I had some success by patching the application, but in the end I gave up and migrated to Win 10.

So I learned that Visual C++ isn't really a standalone runtime environment but depends on Windows system libraries. If these Windows system libraries aren't enhanced by MS, the Visual C++ stubs don't find the needed entries and that may lead to an application error or crash.

[fth0]

MSI (c) (C0:30) [15:43:25:200]: Doing action: ca_IsMSCRTInstalled
Action start 15:43:25: ca_IsMSCRTInstalled.
[...]
MSI (c) (C0!10) [15:43:25:418]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding VBOX_MSCRT_VER_MAJ property. Its value is '14'.
MSI (c) (C0!10) [15:43:25:434]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding VBOX_MSCRT_VER_MIN property. Its value is '36'.
IsMSCRTInstalled: Found v14.36

MSI (c) (C0!10) [15:43:25:481]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding VBOX_MSCRT_INSTALLED property. Its value is '1'.
Action ended 15:43:25: ca_IsMSCRTInstalled. Return value 1.

MSI (c) (A0:44) [15:15:23:797]: Doing action: ca_IsMSCRTInstalled
Action start 15:15:23: ca_IsMSCRTInstalled.
[...]
CustomAction ca_IsMSCRTInstalled returned actual error code 1157 but will be translated to success due to continue marking
Action ended 15:15:25: ca_IsMSCRTInstalled. Return value 1.

The first real difference is indeed the check for the installed runtime. The error code 1157 (ERROR_DLL_NOT_FOUND) generally means "One of the library files needed to run this application cannot be found.", but I don't think it's exact enough in this case.

The VirtualBox source code of IsMSCRTInstalled() (in src/VBox/Installer/win/InstallHelper/VBoxInstallHelper.cpp) is unchanged between VirtualBox 7.0.8 and 7.0.10, but not the Makefile.kmk in src/VBox/Installer/win/. There's a new section regarding attestation signing, and I'll make an educated guess that this modifies the installer so that it is no longer compatible with Windows 7 hosts.

I'll try to get some professional decision if it's easy enough to repair or not ...

[Russw]

If you can find something, that would be great. I've got other software on this laptop that isn't win-10 compatible, so updating isn't possible at this time. And I use that software too often to put it into a VM and have to start a VM each time (plus the laptop isn't really powerful enough to leave a VM running).

[scottgus1]

Hey, Russw, it looks like I should have waited for fth0 to analyze things. Turns out something did change in the installer! And as I look back I forgot about your host being Windows 7. I was wrong, I'm sorry!

[fth0]

It looks like your Windows 7 host is not up to date. Did you install SHA-2 support (KB4474419)?

[Russw]

It looks like your Windows 7 host is not up to date. Did you install SHA-2 support (KB4474419)?

The installed updates shows that one was installed back in 2019.

[fth0]

At the weekend, I created a new VM, installed Windows 7 SP1 (without activation), installed the Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable Package (x64), ran the VirtualBox 7.0.10 installer and could reproduce the issue. Then I just installed KB4474419, rebooted the Windows 7 (as requested) and the VirtualBox 7.0.10 installer didn't complain any more. Could you try the same?

[Russw]

I uninstalled KB4474419, rebooted, used Windows Update to reinstall it (x64 version), rebooted, and same error message. Must be some other WIn 7 update that is interfering. I tried installing in safe mode, but it needs the installer service.

[dantheperson]

Same problem here. Win7. Couldn't install 7.0.12.

Couldn't find "Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 Redistributable Package"

But i installed the 2015-2022 Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable package from here (mod edit: strange quasi-microsoft link removed, seems broken)

That made no difference.

KB4474419 is already installed

Going back to the 7.0.8 installer fixed it for me thanks.

[fth0]

This issue should be fixed in the VirtualBox test builds 7.0.13r160164 and newer.