virtualbox.org

VBoxManage.exe: error: Most likely, the VirtualBox COM server is not running or failed to start.

Virtual Box Version 4.2.18 r88780
Host, windows 7 Professional sp1 Build 7600

Wow,

I found the solution on this blog, and yes, it works.
http://cjhaas.com/blog/2012/11/27/error ... n-windows/

Who would have thought. Usually commands like this have to be run with administrative privileges. And usually things that work as a normal user also work as an administrator.

I had to try this myself as I didn't believe it.

This really needs to be written up and put in the documentation.

I had tried ALL of the remedies I could find on the virtualbox site, all to no avail.

Gary

Why would you need to run as Administrator? Virtualbox doesn't require any Administrator rights for everyday use, nor to run any of the VMs.
It also doesn't ask for admin rights when started and when resizing a virtual disk, you are actually modfying one of your own files on which you have full rights.
So using Administrator rights for such an operation doesn't make sense to start with.