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When I try to launch VM in Oracle VirtualBox on Windows 10 it says "Cannot access the kernel driver". I tried complete reinstall (remove everything and install), repair installation (repair in the installer) and installing 2 drivers manually (VBoxUSBMon and VBoxDrv). Nothing worked. I'm using VirtualBox 4.3.12 because I was not able to launch newer version on Windows 10 for some reason.

Samuel
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10 Answers10

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The problem is with the installer. The new location of the driver is at C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\drivers\vboxdrv\VBoxDrv.sys. However the installer points to the old driver location of C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxDrv.sys.

To fix the problem you need to point the registry value to the new location. Step to do that:

  1. Close VirtualBox
  2. Open regedit.exe from the Start Menu
  3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\currentcontrolset\services\vboxdrv
  4. Double click the name ImagePath
  5. Change the value from \??\C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxDrv.sys to \??\C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\drivers\vboxdrv\VBoxDrv.sys
  6. Restart VirtualBox

I found this answer in the VirtualBox Forum

AllanT
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  • This looks promising, but didn't help for me with VirtualBox 4.3.30 (upgraded I think from 4.3.28 in an earlier attempt to resolve this problem) and doesn't explain why it started to fail spontaneously. There have been earlier reports of a Windows Update breaking Virtualbox but if that's what happened again, I would expect to see a big friendly notice on the Virtualbox site. – tripleee Aug 13 '15 at 04:59
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    what if there is no VBoxDrv? the only directory there similar to what you said is `VBoxNetAdp` – Amir Apr 21 '20 at 10:34
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I went to Control Panel > Programs and Feature (or right click Windows logo) then selected Oracle VM VirtualBox(4.3.12) and then hit repair at the top. I restarted then it worked!! Im running windows 10.0 Home

rjames
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  • This worked for me after the corrupted upgrade to VirtualBox 6.1.38; possibly open while on the upgrade process. This is actually a __Windows approach__ to solving this issue. – Ajowi Oct 02 '22 at 07:19
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Downgrade to VirtualBox 4.3.10.

Samuel
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  • Thank you for advice. Here is December 2018 year. Bug with "Cannot access the kernel driver" not fixed... There is Virtual Box ver. 6 and it is not working so virtual Box was downgraded to ver. 4.3.10 This is holy shit. – Truandale Dec 30 '18 at 09:58
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This worked fine for me after trying all that is mentioned above.

  • Download an old copy of your Virtualbox installer (make sure it's the same version!)
  • Run the installer
  • Select "Repair"
  • Reboot
  • Uninstall the old version
  • Install the new version

Hope it helps!

ralzaul
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I have VirtualBox 4.3.14 and I got the "Cannot access the kernel driver" . I did the traditional repair ,reboot and didn't solve a thing.

After a manual installation of these drivers everything works again.

Go to

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\drivers\USB\filter Select VBoxUSBMon.inf and click the right mouse button. Then pick Install.

Go to

C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\drivers\vboxdrv Select VBoxDrv.inf and click the right mouse button. Then pick install.

VirtualBox should now work again as expected. I hope this helps ! :D

Catalin Ciolocoiu
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Just faced this problem after updating to virtual box 6.1.2 version in windows.

The answer by AllanT worked for me, except that it required one more step:

  1. Execute this from the command line as admin: sc.exe start vboxdrv (restarting the vbox service was not enough).

Note: I would've added this as a comment to AllanT's post but I still don't have enough rep!

famen
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You can open the CMD as admin and locate the folder that you have the Oracle Virtual Box in and run each of the the following with your Virtual Machine's name, if you are using an iso file or a vmdk:

    cd "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\" 
VBoxManage.exe modifyvm "Your VM Name" --cpuidset 00000001 000106e5 00100800 0098e3fd bfebfbff 
VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemProduct" "iMac11,3" 
VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiSystemVersion" "1.0" 
VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/efi/0/Config/DmiBoardProduct" "Iloveapple" 
VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/DeviceKey" "ourhardworkbythesewordsguardedpleasedontsteal(c)AppleComputerInc" 
VBoxManage setextradata "Your VM Name" "VBoxInternal/Devices/smc/0/Config/GetKeyFromRealSMC" 1

Make sure to replace "Your VM Name" with "Your actual VM name".

For more on the latest OS X check an example here: https://techsprobe.com/6-step-install-macos-catalina-on-virtualbox-on-windows-pc/

Carlo A. Fernandez B.
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Just wanted to add, I had this problem on Windows 10. None of the fixes I found worked. Turned out it was due to Trusteer Endpoint Protection, which once uninstalled fixed this perfectly.

OGW
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This is because VirtualBox gets confused about some of their files and settings. When i updated my VirtualBox to 6.0.14 from 6.0.10 then i got this error.

In my case i just deleted C>Username>Program Files>Oracle>VirtualBox folder. And after that i uninstalled VirtualBox from my machine.

After these steps i did a simple fresh install of VirtualBox on my machine and this solves my issue. Hope you also got some help.

Have a nice day random man and great future..

Amit
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I faced the same issue. I am not sure which file was missing. Uninstall and install worked for me :)

sattva_venu
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