Windows 7 hanging at "starting windows" on Mac OS 10.12.2

[DustinHobbs]

I recently updated my Mac OS to 10.12.2 Sierra. The Virtualbox runs Windows 7 64 bit. Before the update everything ran fine, now Win7 begins the startup like normal but hangs up on the "Starting Windows" page with the windows logo (it just sits on that page until I shut it down).
Running Virtualbox 5.1.12.
I'm not sure what guest additions I am running?
Any ideas on how I can fix this issue?

[socratis]

Good news: you have a MBP 8,2, I have a MBP 8,3. You can't believe how much easier it makes to compare logs

00:00:01.834677   CpuExecutionCap   <integer> = 0x0000000000000048 (72)
00:00:01.834703   NumCPUs           <integer> = 0x0000000000000001 (1)

Why did you limit your single CPU execution? Please take it to 100%. And you can definitely afford to increase the VM CPUs to 2. You have 4 physical cores in your MBP.

00:00:01.783119 File system of '/Users/dustin/VirtualBox VMs/Dustin Win7/Dustin CAD.vdi' is hfs

The VM name and the VDI name show that this VDI did not come as part of a default installation, otherwise they'd have the same base name. It seems that you created the VM and then moved the VDI from a previous installation. Any comments?

00:00:01.834708 RamSize  <integer> = 0x0000000071900000 (1 905 262 592, 1 817 MB)
00:00:01.835154 VRamSize <integer> = 0x0000000008800000 (142 606 336, 136 MB)

Not an alarming issue, but your values are not ... round . I'd go for 2048 MB for the RAM and 128 or 256 MB for the vRAM. Computers like power of 2 in their values.

00:00:01.835118 [/Devices/usb-ohci/] (level 2)

If you use USB devices (which you do), enable at least the USB2 controller in the VM settings (EHCI). You already have the ExtPack installed, so you're good to go. You could go for USB3 as well, but you'd have to download and install the USB3 drivers for Windows 7 from Intel: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/downlo ... set-Family

00:00:03.353917 VUSB: Attached '00007f9687a980e0[proxy 05ac:8509]' to port 2
00:00:04.473772 VUSB: Attached '00007f968302caa0[proxy 05ac:821a]' to port 3

You have two active USB filters: the FaceTime camera (8509) and the Bluetooth adapter (821a). The first one, will not work but as soon as the VM starts you're "disabling" it in your host nonetheless. If you want to use the FaceTime camera, do not use a USB filter, use the WebCam option. It won't work otherwise. As for the Bluetooth one, you'd have to disable it from the system startup (which I'm not pretty sure you have done) and it's not easy, unless the procedure changed with OSX 10.12.

00:00:20.033263 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 4.1.16 r78094 '4.1.16'

You should update your GAs (Guest Additions) when you get a chance. Things that are immediately impacted are shared folders and Drag'n'Drop, not so much the graphics and other goodies that the GAs provide. So, do it ASAP, because you are already sharing your /Documents/ (read-write).

00:00:37.912620 NAT: Guest address guess changed from 10.0.2.15 to 169.254.60.253 by gratuitous arp

Now, that's a new one! I can't say that I've seen it before, NAT going to an APIPA address??? Something is rotten in Denmark...

00:02:17.827509 GUI: Request to close active machine-window.

You waited a little bit more than two minutes before shutting the VM down. I've had my physical Win7 system taking more than 10 minutes to boot, especially after a Windows update. Can you take into consideration the previous suggestions and let it go for ~ 10 min?

[DustinHobbs]

Thank you so much. That worked! It's up and running.
I went thru and made the CPU and vCPU changes (not sure why they were set there).
I changed the RAM and vRAM to what you suggested.
I updated the Guest Additions on Win7 to 5.1.12.
I changed to USB2.

On the VDI. When I originally set everything up I only had 56mb of space on the drive. I added this drive to increase to 40gb, but I really wasn't sure what I was doing. It sounds like I didn't do it correctly, but it did seem to work and I have the space for everything I need. Is there something else I should do there? I attached a screen shot of the settings view.

I have no idea why the NAT would change addresses like that? Is that gonna cause issues?

On the USB filters? I don't use the webcam in windows, so are you suggesting I turn those off?

FYI, I had tried opening it many times before giving it hours to do something. That last one was only a couple minutes just to get a good recent log file.

So basically, where it is right now seems to be working great. So unless you see something that I really should change, I'd rather leave everything as is. You know, if it ain't broke (anymore) don't fix it? But let me know what you think.

Thanks again!

[socratis]

Glad you got it going! Most probably what made it work is the additional CPU, the execution cap setting and the little bit of RAM that you added.

On the VDI, just to see what's going on, open up Terminal and post the results of the command:

• ls -al "/Users/dustin/VirtualBox VMs/"

I have no idea why the NAT would change addresses like that? Is that gonna cause issues?

In the middle of investigating. As I said I haven't seen it before. I hope it won't cause any issues, but I'm not very optimistic because an APIPA address takes you to a big void.

On the USB filters? I don't use the webcam in windows, so are you suggesting I turn those off?

Keep them in case you ever need them (doubt it), but deactivate them.

So unless you see something that I really should change, I'd rather leave everything as is.

Just to put our collective minds at ease, and since a screenshot of the settings is not enough, open up again Terminal and post the output of the command:

• VBoxManage showvminfo "Dustin Win7"