virtualbox.org

None of my VM's work under 4.3.18 or 4.3.20. They all abort shortly after startup (log files attached). All of these VM's work just fine under 4.3.16. Is Oracle trying to kill VirtualBox?

Everything coughs back to life under 4.3.16. Is it some sort of video display resize issue? I'm running an Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 v2 w/320.49 Driver under Windows Vista Home Premium host.

I don't think they are trying to kill VirtualBox. I did want to let you know that you were my favorite Sherlock Holmes.

Indubitably, my Dear Lou King, Jr., Indubitably.

Mr. Rathbone,

You may know of the security issue that has been discovered in Virtualbox. My - friends, shall we say? - inform me that malicious code can inject itself into privileged code within the host processes of Virtualbox to gain elevated destructive privileges for the injecting code's own use. The Virtualbox developers, poor souls, have been attempting to counteract my - ahem - this situation since version 4.3.14. The last version which did not have their woeful security-hardening feature was 4.3.12. If you are able to keep your host clean from malware you should be fine running 4.3.12 for guests that need to run (except, perhaps, for Windows 10, which as I understand, does not actually exist in final form yet).

Until we meet again, sir,

Professor Moriarty

"poor souls" and "Woeful" in Moriarty's view, of course

So my dear Professor Moriarty, would it be fair to say Oracle has so far managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

No. Just like Holmes will never leave me be in my endeavours, but always feels it necessary to incommode me and cross my path, the Virtualbox developers will finally figure out how to get the upper hand on the security issue.

Well then Professor, I sit corrected* ... and shall remain in agonizing suspense until such time as there is a new and improved working version**

*I don't stand at my keyboard
** "working" being the operative word here