failed to create the virtualbox com object

[peep1000]

Hello!

I've been using virtualbox on windows 7 and 8. I recently downloaded the update to v 4.3 and I got this error :


Failed to create the VirtualBox COM object.

The application will now terminate.



Start tag expected, '<' not found.

Location: 'C:\Users\Peep1000/.VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml', line 1 (0), column 1.

F:\tinderbox\win-4.2\src\VBox\Main\src-server\VirtualBoxImpl.cpp[525] (long __cdecl VirtualBox::init(void)).

Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: VirtualBox
Interface: IVirtualBox {3b2f08eb-b810-4715-bee0-bb06b9880ad2}

I deleted it and reinstalled thinking it was a problem with the upgrade. I got the same error... I deleted it again and reinstalled 4.2...you got it; same error.

Help!!!

[noteirak]

It seems like your global config file got corrupted. VirtualBox keeps a copy of the last working version, let's replace that.
Browse to C:\Users\Peep1000\.VirtualBox. You should see a VirtualBox.xml file and a VirtualBox.xml-prev.
Take a copy of both files somewhere to be safe, then delete VirtualBox.xml and rename VirtualBox.xml-prev to VirtualBox.xml, then try again to start VirtualBox.
if you only see a VirtualBox file but not VirtualBox.xml, enable seeing known extension into the explorer.