Starting and stopping a VM leaves leftover VirtualBox.exe processes

[Bill Evans]

Each time I start a VM, a new VirtualBox.exe process is started. However, when the VM is shutdown, the previously created process does not go away. Instead, it seems to become a zombie process. The next time I start the VM, a new VirtualBox.exe process gets created. As a result, these zombie VirtualBox.exe processes accumulate until the computer is rebooted.

Running VirtualBox 3.1.6 on a Windows XP Pro SP3 host with all patches current

The attached file shows a process list with 4 VirtualBox.exe processes active. The first one is an active Ubuntu 10.04 guest VM. The 2nd-4th VirtualBox.exe processes are leftovers from starting and stopping an XP Pro SP3 guest multiple times.

[Bill Evans]

Process List