Virtualbox Guest Additions Causing System State Backup to Fail on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with "the parameter is incorrect"

[kartweel]

After spending hours trying to get a system state backup to work on a windows 2008 R2 SP1 DC, I finally discovered an invalid imagepath registry key for the VBoxService.

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VBoxService\ImagePath value = system32\VBoxService.exe

This causes the backup to fail with "the parameter is incorrect" (very informative I know!)

I replaced with c:\windows\system32\VBoxService.exe and now it is working. This probably isn't the correct path to put, but it worked, so I'm happy. Maybe it should be \system32\VBoxService.exe ?

[redleh]

Hi,

I just had the same problem and yes the cause is the same as originally reported. But I have researched and tested a lot more to find the root cause and the problem is really caused by VirtualBox. I believe that it is a very easy fix for you guys to incorporate in future releases. It is very time-consuming to discover the solution.

In my case my host was Windows 7 Professional.

I'll explain how you can find out more about the issue and to identify which service is causing the issue. This article explains the problem is related to an Incorrect ImagePath value in the registry ​http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2010/06/18/reasons-why-the-error-enumeration-of-the-files-failed-may-occur-during-system-state-backup.aspx

This article provides a powershell script to identify which services are causing the problem (VBoxService had an incorrect parameter that conflicts with the Windows Backup) ​http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2010/06/18/ps-script-for-blog-enumeration-of-the-files-failed.aspx?

This registry command lists how the ImagePath is set for all services and exports it to a txt file (good to check the right way to set the path) reg query HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services /s /v ImagePath > regkeys.txt

Basically the way you guys set the ImagePath value in the registry for your services is \System32\<servicename>

<servicename> being any service such as VBoxService.exe

Microsoft doesn't like the \System32\<servicename> format

Fix: If you could change the ImagePath value for all your services under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services to either:

%Systemroot%\System32\<servicename> or \SystemRoot\System32\<servicename>

would easily avoid this kind of incompatibility with Microsoft.

If it wasn't clear this was on a VM, so it is probably caused by installing the Additions, but I noticed that the VirtualBox related services after installing VirtualBox in a Windows Host also show up in the Host registry with the same format. That's why I think it was relevant to revisit this issue because a very simple setting that is not compatible with Microsoft way of doing things will probably cause other kind of issues if not corrected.

Thanks,

Great work with VirtualBox, it is awesome.

[aeichner]

Please reopen if still relevant with a recent VirtualBox release.