virtualbox.org

I tested the 4.3.0 Release on a Win7-Host with Win7-Guests. The following issues showed up, which led me to revert this update back to 4.2.18...

1. All Win7-guests need to be re-activated. This is a pain, if your guests are not (and can not be) connected to the internet, although legally licensed and previously activated.

2. Automatic login does not work anymore. Instead it shows up a new (second) button for the desired login account in the Win7 welcome screen.

3. Deactivation of the close button of a guest window doesn't work anymore. I am able to issue "VBoxManage setextradata [boxname] GUI/RestrictedCloseActions SaveState,Shutdown,PowerOff,Restore" but when I click on the window close button, the guest window just closes as with a brute force 'PowerOff', not asking for any other option. With previous versions it just did nothing (ignored the click), which was exactly what I wanted.

Don't know if any or all of these items are reported elsewhere already, but at least for me these are real show stoppers...

regards

On point 1, it would be nice if someone could pinpoint what precisely the hardware is that provokes activation. There was a tool for XP that could tell you what had changed since last activation, but I don't know if anything similar exists for Win7 - I'm not really a Win7 user myself.

See the following links on how activation works:

http://www.gohacking.com/how-windows-pr ... ion-works/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/windows- ... -look/1803

Enough things changed that Windows thought it was on a new PC. Could be the MAC address, different virtual BIOS, etc. I believe things like a BIOS or motherboard change are weighted higher because it typically indicates a major hardware change.

Thanks for making the effort, but I'm afraid your links look like they're spreading obsolete gossip. E.g. the hardware signature for XP activation is known to be different from that calculated (say) by Win7, but the links make no mention of that. For a discussion see What Changes Trigger Reactivation in a Windows Guest.

If the rules were the same across all Windows versions then the XP tool I mentioned above would work just as well in Vista, Win7 and Win8. Also, all Windows VMs would be affected by the OPs issue, not just the Win7+ ones.

With 4.3.2 the first item is resolved (Win7-Activation). But the other 2 issues remain... I posted these in the Bugtracker.