VirtualBox Not Working In Windows 10 – How To Fix?

Oracle’s VirtualBox is one of the most popular free hypervisors. It allows users to run virtual devices on a computer. Being extremely popular among enthusiasts, it has a huge support library for almost all the operating systems including Windows, Linux, Haiku, etc.

Recently, many users have reported that the VirtualBox application fails to load in Windows 10. There have been reports of the VirtualBox seamless mode not working as well. Here, I shall discuss what the seamless mode is, and how you can solve it using simple methods.

What Is VirtualBox Seamless Mode?

VirtualBox by Oracle is a free virtual machine platform. It allows users to run virtual machines on top of the current operating system installed on their device. This comes in extremely useful when users want to try out some developmental code, application, etc.

Many times, you may want to get rid of the navigation menu bar of VirtualBox and use the virtual operating system seamlessly on the computer. This feature can be enabled using the VirtualBox seamless mode, which removes the additional menu bars and other navigation panes of the VirtualBox application. The keyboard shortcut for the same is Host + L.

Why Is VirtualBox Seamless Mode Not Working?

There are many reasons why you may see VirtualBox not working on your Windows 10 device. Some of these include:

• External modules like Hyper-V when not enabled on your computer may cause the VirtualBox to fail to load on your device.
• An outdated VirtualBox virtual machine software can sometimes not have the appropriate support for the guest OS.
• Windows Updates handles the drivers that are installed on your device. Since VirtualBox also installs custom drivers, Windows may block certain features and cause conflicts between the two.
• Windows Updates also may cause issues with the VirtualBox virtual machine software, which can be solved with the help of Paravirtualization.

How To Solve VirtualBox Not Working Error On Windows 10?

Now that you have a slight idea as to why you may be getting this error, here are some simple solutions that you can use to troubleshoot your VirtualBox seamless mode error.

Solution 1: Update Built-In Graphics Drivers

Although Windows Updates handles the driver updates, you might have accidentally missed some critical driver updates, which can lead to your virtual machine application crashing or not loading up at all. This is actually one of the most common causes that this error can happen. If you have missed some of the device driver updates, those outdated drivers can conflict with your hardware and can result in many different errors including this VirtualBox seamless not working error.

To know the detailed process, you can check our article dedicated to updating the device drivers.

Following this, you should see your VirtualBox not working error solved.

Solution 2: Install Guest Additions Image

When you install the VirtualBox application, the necessary drivers and packages are installed along with the application itself. However, the Guest Additions image is not installed alongside the application, which can lead to certain errors on your device.

Without the Guest Additions image, you cannot use the Seamless mode in VirtualBox. You might see the option grayed out, or not working upon clicks. To install Guest Additions, follow these steps:

1. Open the VirtualBox virtual machine application and boot into your guest operating system.
2. In the top ribbon, click on Devices to reveal a context menu.
3. Here, select Insert Guest Additions CD image.

This should bring up an installation wizard. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the additional packages.

However, if you see that the Guest Additions image is not installed, you need to sign in to your Virtual operating system, open a Run prompt and type the following command and press Enter:

D:\VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe

Restart your virtual machine once the installation finishes.

Solution 3: Update Windows And VirtualBox

If you see that the Guest Additions image is already installed on your device, there might be some conflict issues with your operating system and the VirtualBox application itself. This can be very easily resolved by updating all the involved components.

First, install any pending updates to your Windows operating system. Each update contains bug fixes and contains the new versions of the installed drivers.

Next, update the VirtualBox client. The best way to do so is to install a fresh copy of the application.

1. From your control panel, remove the VirtualBox application. (Shortcut: Use command appwiz.cpl in a Run dialog)
2. Next, visit the VirtualBox website and download the latest version of the client software.
3. Install the software by double-clicking on the downloaded executable file.

You can point VirtualBox to the existing virtual machines that are installed on your VirtualBox software. Your Virtual machines are stored in the following folders:

C:\Users\[username]\VirtualBox VMs
C:\Users\[username]\VirtualBox VMs\[vm group]\[vm name]

Solution 4: Enable Hyper-V

Microsoft Hyper-V (also known as ‘Windows server virtualization) is the module required to run virtual machines on your computer. This module is used by many other third-party applications to run virtual operating systems over your existing OS in Windows 8 or higher.

When disabled, you will not be able to run virtual machines on your computer. Make sure that it is enabled and then try opening the VirtualBox software again. To enable Hyper-V, follow these steps:

1. Open the Windows search bar using the shortcut Win + S.
2. Type Turn Windows features on or off in the search bar.
3. Click on the appropriate search result to launch the Windows Features dialog box.
4. In the list of available features, locate Hyper-V.
5. Enable the module by checking the box next to the entry.

6. Press OK for the assignment process to start for your module.
7. Once the module is enabled, restart your computer.

Now try running the new virtual machines in VirtualBox using the seamless mode. The VirtualBox not working error should now be resolved.

Solution 5: Disable Driver Enforcement

Windows 10 has become much stricter in allowing third-party applications to install drivers on it. Driver Enforcement is one of the safety features in Windows that restricts suspicious and badly coded drivers from being mounted on your operating system.

Since VirtualBox installs its own drivers as well, these are treated as external drivers and Windows may end up blocking them. If you see VirtualBox not working, you need to disable Driver Enforcement in Windows. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open an elevated command prompt. To do so, open a Run dialog by pressing Win + R. Here, type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch Command Prompt with administrative privileges.
2. Here, type the following command and press Enter to execute it:
   bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks on

3. This will turn of integrity checks for the drivers installed by third-party applications. If you want to enable driver enforcement integrity checks, enter the following command and press Enter:
   bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks off
4. Restart your computer once you have turned off integrity checks for third-party drivers.

If VirtualBox was not working normally because of driver integrity checks, this should now be solved.

Solution 6: Change Paravirtualization

Paravirtualization refers to the software technique, which allows virtual machines to have a software interface, instead of attempting to emulate an entire hardware environment. This is necessary to access virtual machines through interfaces, which are similar to the underlying hardware to optimize system performance.

There are many reports among users that this Paravirtualization feature is causing problems in VirtualBox. A simple trick is to change the acceleration mode to KVM. Follow these steps for the same:

1. Open VirtualBox virtual machine application.
2. Click on Settings.
3. Navigate to System > Acceleration > Paravirtualization Interface.
4. Select the option KVM from the drop-down box.
5. Restart your computer and try launching VirtualBox again.

If Paravirtualization was causing your application to fail to load, this should solve the error.

Solution 7: Disable 3D Acceleration

When you use 3D Acceleration, your virtual machine will use the host machine to render the 3D graphics necessary to run the operating system. But there is a chance that your graphics card does not support 3D acceleration, it can cause the virtual machine software to crash and you may see VirtualBox seamless mode blank or missing.

To disable 3D acceleration in VirtualBox, follow these steps:

1. Open the VirtualBox application on your computer.
2. Select your installed virtual machine and click on the Settings
3. Under the Display section, remove the checkbox associated to ‘Enable 3D Acceleration’.
4. Click on the OK button to save your settings.

This should enable the VirtualBox Seamless box on your machine, and prevent any crashes as well.

Solution 8: Install VirtualBox Adapters Manually

If VirtualBox fails in installing the network adapters automatically, you may get an error message that says, ‘Unable to load VirtualBox’. If this happens to you as well, you can try installing the VirtualBox network adapters manually and then set the configuration to its correct values.

1. Firstly, delete all the previously installed VirtualBox adapters.
2. Open a Run dialog by pressing Win + R.
3. Type devmgmt.msc and press Enter to launch the Device Manager console.
4. In the top ribbon, click on Action > Add legacy hardware.

5. Install the Oracle VirtualBox adapters, from the following location:
   C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\drivers\network\netadp\VBoxNetAdp.inf
6. Open VirtualBox application on your device.
7. Navigate the following path:
   File > Preferences > Network > Host-only Network > Edit.
8. Now, set the following values:
   • IPv4 Address: 192.68.56.1
   • Network Mask: 255.255.255.0

9. Now click on the DHCP server tab and set the following values in the respective fields:
   • Server address: 192.168.56.100
   • Server mask: 255.255.255.0
   • Low address bound: 192.168.56.101
   • Upper address bound: 192.168.56.254
10. Press OK and restart your computer.

Wrapping Up

So there you have it. Now you know how to solve if you see VirtualBox not working on your computer. Comment below if you found this useful, and to discuss further the same.