Can't start VirtualBox manager. COM Object error

Question

Our host is Windows Server 2008 r2.
When a user RDP's into the server and starts an instance of VirtualBox, then another user RDP's in to a different user account and tries to start VirtualBox, it throws this error:

Failed to create the VirtualBox COM object.
Callee RC: CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE (0x80080005) Windows Server 2008

Is VB able to handle multiple instances?

Our current case: U1 started VB to start up some of our VM's.
U2 (me in this case) just wants to create a couple new VM's on there.

If VB is unable to do this, how should I go about creating the new VM's?

Answer 1

Well, it looks like we might have gotten to the bottom of it.
We had a service running that was an artifact from something that had been tried a while back.
VboxVMService was still installed and running.
As soon as we killed that, BINGO!, we were able to get in.

I hope this helps somebody :)

Answer 2

In my case the above solutions didn't work, but deleting the entire folder at C:\Users\YourUserName\.VirtualBox fixed the issue. Worth a try for anyone else for whom the above solutions don't help.

Answer 3

For me the issue was that a VM that was setup had permissions set for a user that no longer existed. I tracked down the old user's folder, deleted them carefully and then set the permissions on my virtual machines folder and all children to my current user.

Starting VBox as administrator temporarily got things working, which is what led me to find that it was a permissions issue.

PS: VboxVMService was installed in my system as well, I did not have to uninstall it to get VirtualBox working again.

Answer 4

If you have this problem, uninstall VM first. At the time of installation process, right click on 'VirtualBox_any_version.exe' and click on -> Run as Administrator. This will fix this issue.