Vista and Windows 7 Session Aborted During Install

[o0o0o]

Attempting to install Windows Vista Ultimate, Enterprise, and Windows 7 crashes and the Virtualbox session is aborted during install. When Vista attempts to "expand files" the session is aborted.

[o0o0o]

Attempting to install Windows Vista Ultimate, Enterprise, and Windows 7 crashes and the Virtualbox session is aborted during install. When Vista attempts to "expand files" the session is aborted.

Modified to include attached vbox.log rather than embedding it in the ticket.

[o0o0o]

I've just verified that this bug (atleast for me) is corrected in Virtualbox 3.2. Attempting to install in VBox 4 fails.

[frank]

Any chance to provide a  core dump? If so, please contact me via frank _dot_ mehnert _at_ oracle _dot_ com (if necessary I can tell you a server where you can upload the file.

[o0o0o]

Replying to frank:

Any chance to provide a  core dump? If so, please contact me via frank _dot_ mehnert _at_ oracle _dot_ com (if necessary I can tell you a server where you can upload the file.

Emailed coredump.

[michaln]

As a workaround, try reducing the memory amount assigned to the guest.

[frank]

We think we fixed your bug. Could you test  this test build?

[Pikidalto]

I am experiencing this on VBox 4.3.4. My session crashes the instant the Windows Vista installer loads (e.g. right after the arrow and colored background appear, but before any installer dialogs appear) and is marked as Aborted in the VBox Manager.

Reducing memory isn't the issue as suggested above: I tried giving everything from 256MB to 4GB RAM (my host has 8GB RAM), and everything from 18MB to 256MB video RAM. No combination works.

It is not an option to disable VT-X: The only legal copy of Vista I have is 64bit, and I won't turn pirate just for testing.

I tried to generate a core dump as suggested by frank, but VBox won't create a core.* file for me to submit. (I followed the linked article exactly for non-Ubuntu Linux distros).

EDIT: I also tried with PAE and I/O APIC varying combinations of on and off. PAE seems to have no affect. Turning off I/O APIC causes the installer to give an error before it loads to the point of crashing VBox, so it seems required by Vista.

[frank]

Pikidalto, please attach a VBox.log file of such a VM session.

I wonder were you read about turning pirate...

[Pikidalto]

Log for a crashing Vista VM

[Pikidalto]

Replying to frank:

Pikidalto, please attach a VBox.log file of such a VM session.

I wonder were you read about turning pirate...

I wander if you know about the restrictive licenses that Microsoft places on their software...

It is illegal to download Microsoft software from any source besides Microsoft, and even coming from Microsoft it is allowed only under the conditions/circumstances that they choose to allow.

Pertaining specifically to this bug, the only two ways for me to test 32bit Windows Vista for testing this bug would be to dish out a large amount of money to buy it, or to download it illegally since Microsoft does not offer free downloads of Windows Vista (even if they do, they would require me to buy a license key to "activate" it after installing it). I am not willing to do either.

[6XGate]

I had a similar bug as Pikidalto when attaching and using a DVD drive on a SATA controller for the installation media. By moving the DVD drive back to an IDE controller, the problem went away.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.