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After installing VirtualBox 4.1.8r75467 on a Windows 7 64 bit host, the bridge adapter doesn't appear to have been installed. It doesn't show in device manager, and in VB, changing Settings > Network > Attached To to Bridged Adaptor shows only Not Selected in the Name dropdown. No error message during install, and yes I did confirm during the installation.

Things I've tried:

  • Using installer to repair the install
  • Complete uninstall and reinstall
  • Reinstall in safe mode
  • Reinstall with UAC and anti-virus (Kaspersky) disabled
  • As recommended in an older issue here, tried to delete this file, but was denied access, even in safe mode: %SystemRoot%\System32\DriverStore\INFCACHE.1

This is a blocking issue, and I'm out of things to try. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

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migrated from serverfault.com Jan 8 at 19:27

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

3 Answers

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File a bug report at Oracle. Wait for the next version.

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I don't think the bridged adapter is supposed to show up in the device manager, just the VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter - I am guessing that doesn't show up either?

I would suggest trying a couple of things:

First, did you verify the MD5SUM/SHA256 hash of your download with the versions stored on the download page: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Second, can you use System Restore to go back to a known good state before trying to install VirtualBox?

Third, use the Certificates MMC snap-in to look in both your user store and computer stores for any certificates from Oracle or Sun - and delete them. This should ensure that you get a prompt when installing asking if you want to trust the device/vendor. Of course you want to trust them to enable all of VirtualBox's features.

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Thanks for your ideas. - MD5 check was worthwhile, but it matches. - Re known-good state, other than this, my system is healthy, AFAIK, developing on it. Earlier version of VB I had used only NAT, so bridge adapter state is unknown. - Removed the Oracle cert, and did get a further prompt, but no change; empty Name dropdown when set to Bridged Adapter. I could report it, but it's hard to believe this happens to everyone who installs this version of VB on Win7/64. Wish I knew what's "special" about my system, or how to work around it. – enigment Jan 8 at 3:37
Actually, it appears that at least some people have had this problem, over a long period of time, across multiple VB versions. See here: virtualbox.org/report/44. Looking into the workarounds suggested, some of which I've already tried, some not. – enigment Jan 8 at 14:05
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This response here about the MaxNumFilters registry value fixed the problem for me:

Resolved my issue not sure if it resolves the issue for others, my Windows 7 had run out of network filters, changing the registry entry for network filers form 8 to 14 allowed the bridging to the adapters to show

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Network\MaxNumFilters

I saw a lot of entries in device manager when I showed the hidden ones, so I set the max limit to 24, and the install appears to have worked.

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