[Solved] Virtualbox crashes with XP guest

[Blurg95]

I run XP as a guest so I can play some old games. It used to be very stable and never crashed, but with the latest update ViirtualBox crashes constantly.

I get a pop up box that says

Virtualbox.exe - Application Error Instruction at 0xblablabla referenced memory at 0xblablabla The memory could not be written.

I have played this game on an XP Guest running on Win10 many times in the past and have never gotten this error before.

[mpack]

I run XP as a host so I can play some old games. It used to be very stable and never crashed, but with the latest update ViirtualBox crashes constantly.

XP was dropped as a supported host in VirtualBox 5.x. The "latest update" (6.0.4 at time of writing) doesn't even install on 32bit hosts, which I assume your XP host is - so how you managed to get as far as crashing it is a tad beyond me.

And if you are asking a question about an XP host, why post the question in "Windows Guests"?

[Blurg95]

Sorry, my bad. I am running Windows 10 with an XP guest. why on earth would I be running an XP guest on an XP Host? Yea I know this is probably a joke to you guys. Nobody pays you to run XP guests so it's a non issue for you I'm sure.
I am running Version 5.2.26 r128414 (Qt5.6.2) that was the version Virtual box told me was the newest version. I am going to install 6.0.4 and see how that goes.

[andyp73]

why on earth would I be running an XP guest on an XP Host?

Some people run the same host and guest so that they can keep things separate from each other - do safe things on the host, risky things in the guest!

Nobody pays you to run XP guests so it's a non issue for you I'm sure.

Not sure where that came from. In order to support / guide / advise, I like many others have many Windows guests installed (WfW 3.11, 98, Me, NT, XP, 7 and 10 if you want the full list) and they all work without problems.

The original issue you reported could be a genuine memory issue on the host, it could be a guest configuration issue or it could be a programming error. See how you get on with v6.0.4 and if there is still a problem zip up and port the VBox.log file from the guest.

-Andy.

[mpack]

Nobody pays you to run XP guests so it's a non issue for you I'm sure.

Nobody pays us to do anything - this is a user to user discussion forum. If you want professional help you would need to buy a support contract. If you want informed non-professional help we need a vm log.

[Blurg95]

What I meant was that I am sure Oracle is not making any money supporting XP Guests so my problem is not high on their list. I didn't mean volunteers on a list. Any advice you provide is appreciated. The only reason I even created an account and reported this was because I have never had this program crash under Virtualbox or Virtualbox itself crash while running this program. Now all of a sudden it can't run two minutes without crashing. Figured somebody would be interested.
Anyway, i upgraded to 6 and the problem seems to be resolved. Thanks for your help.

[socratis]

I am sure Oracle is not making any money supporting XP Guests

How do you know? Seriously... how?

Let me give you a hint; with 6.0.0 a new guest was added on the list: Windows NT 3.1. Do you know how old this thing is? Came out on 1993, 26 years ago! So, please don't make assumptions that are based on... guesswork.

Anyway, i upgraded to 6 and the problem seems to be resolved

Great, thanks for letting us know. Marking as [Solved].