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Installing VirtualBox 4.3 on Windows 7-64 – Solved

I was preparing for an Oracle online workshop on Database 12c multi-tenancy, and as part of the prep, you get to download a VM image with the lab environment. Of course, being Oracle, it is a Virtual Box vm.

Now, I like Virtual Box. It works great on my Mac at home, but for some reason I’ve had problems installing 4.x on my work laptop (Lenovo W520, getting on a bit now but still recommended).

The problem is Virtual Box almost completely installs – until it gets a certain point, then the progress bar runs backwards and it says “rolling back install”, followed by:

“Oracle VM VirtualBox 4.3.20 Setup Wizard ended prematurely” because of “an error”. This is followed up by “Installation failed! Fatal error during installation.”.

No other information provided. Running as Adminstrator after a cold reboot didn’t help.

Well… I really wanted to have the Workshop lab environment available, so despite the fact that last time I encountered this problem I didn’t find any useful help on the web, I tried again… and this time, I found something on the forums, a post by user Tronmech:

https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=61785

I’ll repeat the instructions here in case for some reason that post vanishes:

  • Go into the registry at: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Network
  • Change “MaxNumFilters” from 8 to 20 (decimal)
  • Reboot
  • Install 4.3.x (run installer as administrator, just in case)

This time, the install was successful. Thanks, Tronmech!

After some more research, it seems that Windows 7 has a maximum hard-coded limit of 14 network filter drivers… and for some reason, this setting in the registry reduces it further to 8, by default.

So setting the MaxNumFilters key to 20 probably only lifts the artificial limit and allows 14 possible filters. Applications such as Virtual Machine managers and VPN clients need to add filters to the network stack, and increasing this limit in the registry seems to be the recommended fix.

In one KB article, I read that a Windows Service Pack could not be installed until some filters were removed!

To view currently deployed Network Filter Drivers, right-click on your connection widget in the Network Connections control panel applet, and view properties:

I believe that each of those checkboxed items is a “Network Filter Driver”. I have 9 of them, and I assume that the “VirtualBox Bridged Networking” driver was the 9th one added after I lifted the limit of 8.

16 Comments

  1. Shabeer

    Super!!!!!, it worked , after a long search online finally got a proper solution. thanks to you for positing this and to the person whoever invented this.

  2. Manogar

    It worked. Thanks a lot for this reference(fix). May I know what's happening with this registry update?

  3. authtn

    it worked.

  4. Jeff

    Thanks it solved my problem. One doubt I have. Will installing guest OS cause data loss in Host Machine?

  5. colin

    Jeff, the only scenario I can think of where installing a guest OS in a VirtualBox VM would cause data loss in the host machine would be this:

    1) Host machine has limited free space
    2) You create VM with large hard drive but choose the "dynamic" sizing option, instead of "fixed"
    3) Installing the guest OS expands the .vdi until there is no free space on the host os file system
    4) host os complains and/or crashes due to lack of swap space or similar.

    I don't even know if this is realistic – I'm sure you'd be warned before it got to that point.

  6. Paul

    Awesome it worked! thanks so much!

  7. meraj

    wow perfect tnx tnx tnx

  8. Justin

    Not working, because I don't find VIRTUALBOX BRIDGED NETWORKING DRIVER, but same error when installing. Why?

  9. tariq

    i can not find this path
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Network
    Change "MaxNumFilters" from 8 to 20 (decimal)
    kindly tell me anyone

  10. Eric

    i am using windows server 2008 64bit. i have changed it from 8 – 20 but it still gives me the error. please help me

  11. NickTerz

    didn't work for me. I didn't even have the "MaxNumFilters" in "Network", So I made it. Didn't work either..

  12. Davy S

    I have set "MaxNumFilters" to 20 (decimal) and rebooted. Same error appears. Any ideas?

  13. NickTerz

    Well, there was a problem whith my registry so I had to refresh windows. After the first reboot I installed virtual box and everything was fine. I hope that helps

  14. priyo

    How can I find the path????? There is nothing named hkey local machine…..someone heeeellllpppp

  15. Daniel Konczal

    go to start than run. If you have windows 10 simply type "run" into the search box. Type "regedit" then ok. Then HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\.

  16. Daniel Konczal

    how did you make it? What were the specifications you used?

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