Windows 2000 slow boot

[Miguel Santos]

When I have the the latest version of virtualbox additions installed in the windows 2000 guest, the boot is very slow. It hangs for about a minute and a half in "preparing network conections..." But when I install a older version of virtualbox additions (ex: 4.0.8)it becames a lot faster.

Host: Windows 7 64bit

[Miguel Santos]

it hangs here

[Miguel Santos]

This bug is continues in version 4.1.18

[bob3248]

I can confirm this bug. There is a 1.5 minute delay at Preparing Network Connections during Windows 2000 startup in Virtualbox 4.1.16 and 4.1.18 with the guest additions installed. Without the guest additions there is no delay. There is also no delay in Windows XP x86 or Windows Server 2003 x86 or Windows NT 4.0 even with the guest additions installed.

Host: Windows 7 x64 SP1, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 CPU, 8GB RAM Guest: Windows 2000 Professional clean install with default VirtualBox options except for 512 MB RAM. VT-x is enabled.

This bug is discussed in the forums at: ​https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=49645

Edit: wrong version numbers.

[bob3248]

After further testing it appears that this issue is caused by the VirtualBox Guest Additions Service. In services.msc, the status of this service shows "Starting" and it never changes to "Started" like it should. If the Startup type for this service is changed to manual instead of automatic, there is no delay at Preparing Network Connections during Windows startup. If I try to start the service manually with "net start vboxservice" at the command prompt, I receive an error message that says "The VirtualBox Guest Additions Service could not be started."

[Frank Mehnert]

That is actually a very interesting information. Could you do a bit more debugging? In the guest, please open regedit.exeand add/edit the following keys:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\VBoxService\ImagePath = "system32\VBoxService.exe -vvvv --logfile c:\VBoxService.log" (REG_EXPAND_SZ)

After the registry modification were made the guest needs to be restarted. Please then attach the VBoxService.log file(s) (will be written to C:\ on the guest) to this defect. Thanks!

[Frank Mehnert]

Never mind, I can reproduce it here.

[bob3248]

I still have the same problem after upgrading to VirtualBox 4.1.20 with the 4.1.20 guest additions.

[Miguel Santos]

This bug is continues in version 4.1.20

[bob3248]

This issue is still present in version 4.1.22.

[Miguel Santos]

This issue is still present in version 4.2.0

[bob3248]

This issue is still present in version 4.2.2.

[Miguel Santos]

This issue is still present in version 4.2.4.

[pentagonik]

The issue should be fixed in the next upcoming maintenance version.

[bob3248]

Yes, it is fixed in 4.2.6. Thank you!

[Toni Homedes i Saun]

Sorry to say it is not fixed.

Here running 4.2.6 r82870 on W2003 host and 5 W2000 guests.

Guest side tried both virtio-net and PCnet-FAST III with no change.

---

My mistake. I had updated VBox but not the Guest Additions. Once updated the Guest additions everything is fine again.

[Frank Mehnert]

Thanks for the feedback.