virtualbox.org

Good morning comunity, this is my first post so thanks in advance for your support.
Since several days ago I cannot execute the VirtualBox in my laptop. When I try to execute it the application returns the following error:

Fallo al crear el objeto COM de VirtualBox.
La aplicación se cerrará.
Start tag expected, '<' not found.
Location: 'C:\Users\Juanjo/.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml', line 1 (0), column 1.
D:\tinderbox\win-4.3\src\VBox\Main\src-server\VirtualBoxImpl.cpp[531] (long __thiscall VirtualBox::init(void)).
Código Resultado: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Componente: VirtualBox
Interfaz: IVirtualBox {fafa4e17-1ee2-4905-a10e-fe7c18bf5554}

Anybody knows how to solve it? I've tried to uninstall and re-install the program several times but without result.

Thanks in advanche for your help,
Juanjo

Solved!!!

I've tried once more. I've uninstalled the application, once more, but this time I've deleted manually the folder .Virtualbox once the uninstall process has finished.
After that, I've installed again the program and now it's working without errors.

Best regards,
Juanjo

Error message wrote: Start tag expected, '<' not found.
Location: 'C:\Users\Juanjo/.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml', line 1 (0), column 1.

There was no need to reinstall VirtualBox. The error message tells you that the "VirtualBox.xml" file had been damaged. This can be repaired in a number of ways, e.g. rename the ".xml-prev" file, or restore from a recent external backup, or simply delete the "VirtualBox.xml" file and let VirtualBox recreate it on next startup (don't try this with other files!): since VirtualBox.xml contains the VM register the last method will result in all VMs needing to be re-registered (register each VMs ".vbox" file using Machine|Add...), but at least it's a clean and guaranteed fix.

Your deletion of the .VirtualBox folder was another way to accomplish that last option. The software reinstallation step isn't necessary - reinstallation never affects data.