Cannot start VirtualBox on Windows 10 - (Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object)

Question

Greetings to the community, I recently tried to open my VirtualBox (windows 10 host OS) after approximately 3-4 months (when everything was perfect). Unfortunately, now the VirtualBox is unable to get started and I'm getting the following error message

Failed to acquire the VirtualBox COM object. The application will now terminate.

Completely failed to instantiate CLSID_VirtualBox: ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND 0x80070002.


Result Code: 
ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND 0x80070002 (0x80070002)
Component: 
VirtualBoxClientWrap
Interface: 
IVirtualBoxClient {d2937a8e-cb8d-4382-90ba-b7da78a74573}

What I have tried so far is:

1. Uninstall the virtualbox installation

2. Re-install

3. Reboot

(failed)

I have searched on the web for a solution but did not find anything really enlightening. Maybe this was caused due to a corrupted file on my system? Could you please provide an alternative workaround? I just do not want to lose my existing VMs. Thanks in advance :)

PS: I don't know if this is related, but I have previously used Vagrant on my system, I mention that because it would not come to me as a surprise if the Vagrant corrupted something related to the VirtualBox.

Solution 1

Solved it by deleting C:\Users\[Username]\.VirtualBox.

Note: I have previously installed VB and the issue only came up after I installed a new one.

Solution 2

Moving or Deleting .VirtualBox did not fix it for me.

However ending the background process VBoxSDS in the Task Manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) allowed me to restart VirtualBox without the error.

Comments

[Biswapriyo]

Generally, reinstallation solved this same issue in my case. Did you see any error code during installation? Did you delete any file from the installation folder?

[NickAth]

@Biswapriyo thanks for your reply, no I did not see any error during the installation neither I deleted any file from the installation folder, maybe is a corrupted in the registry file?

[Biswapriyo]

Run these two commands as administrator: 1. reg query "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{D2937A8E-CB8D-4382-90BA-B7DA78‌​A74573}\ProxyStubCls‌​id32" /VE 2. reg query "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0BB3B78C-1807-4249-5BA5-EA42D66AF0‌​BF}\InProcServer32" /VE. Replay with what did you see?

[NickAth]

@Biswapriyo Reply from command 1) reg query "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{D2937A8E-CB8D-4382-90BA-B7DA78‌​A74573}\ProxyStubCls‌​id32" /VE HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{D2937A8E-CB8D-4382-90BA-B7DA78A‌​74573}\ProxyStubClsi‌​d32 (Default) REG_SZ {0BB3B78C-1807-4249-5BA5-EA42D66AF0BF} Reply from command 2) reg query "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0BB3B78C-1807-4249-5BA5-EA42D66AF0‌​BF}\InProcServer32" /VE HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0BB3B78C-1807-4249-5BA5-EA42D66AF0B‌​F}\InProcServer32 (Default) REG_SZ C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxProxyStub.dll

[Ravindra Bawane]

Processes and services are not "deleted" from the Task Manager. Please edit your post to make it more correct and informative.