Unexpected Host Crash

[marcox]

I'm using VBox302 on a WinXPSP2 host with 1GB of RAM.

Yesterday I made a mistake, starting a VM while another one was running (actually in pause mode). As the first machine uses 480MB of RAM, there was obviously not enough memory to run the second one.

I realized my mistake in a few seconds and was expecting the usual message that older VBox versions used to display in such a situation (something like [i]"the VM can not be initialized because VB is unable to allocate the required memory"i) but, instead of that message, I got a [b]sudden complete resetb of the [b]host systemb, without any kind of message or blue screen: something like the old DOS times.

I am not willing to try again, because I don't want to run any risks of messing up the host system's registry. My question is: [i][color=#BF0040]why didn't VBox issue the warning message?colori Is that a bug of the new version?

[Frank Mehnert]

Well, it is hard to prevent the user from shooting into his own foot. This behavior didn't change with the last version.

[marcox]

Well, I remeber old versions showing a warning about insufficient RAM and preventing the VM from starting, with no host system's crashes at all. That was a very useful prevention. After all, even a skilled user can aim his own foot by mistake...