Oracle Virtualbox CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE

For those who, like me and after browsing 9000 of these pervasive helpless "expert forums" ("just run as admin, that solved everything for me!11!!1") and short before switching to a better virtualization engine, here for the records and for your time-saving my findings, with a lot of thanks to one of these rare helpful blog posts. And it is just as sick and loco as you may want to imagine when dealing with Oracle.

Abstract

Starting Virtualbox as a normal user fails with CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE 0x80080005. To run it as Administrator (in my case: Even Domain Admin, as local Administrator and even local DCOM user would not help!) works, and is exactly what you want when using a sandbox with all privileges inside. Not.

Inital situation

• Windows 7 Ultimate x64
• Windows AD Domain member
• Virtualbox 4.3.16 (but also 4.3.12, 4.3.6 and all 4.3 versions)
• after a migration, in my case even multiple:
  • from one domain into another (including migrated roaming user profile)
  • from Virtualbox <4.3 to 4.3.x (which had actually happened a while ago and before the domain switch)
• No solution although
  • all DCOM permissions possible in the component services MMC snap-in have been set
  • File permissions and privileges for users limped right to the limit of what a caring Admin might still accept

Solution and background

At least in my quite special case, the following and embarrassingly simple trick did it:

• Start > Control panel > System > Advanced system settings > Advanced > Environment vars > System vars
• Find the VIRTUALBOX_USER_HOME entry
• Destroy it entirely
• Save
• Log off and on again (I didn't, but hey)
• Done.

[Fingerpointing and shouting removed after rethinking. Although really suitable.]

Hope this helps anyone, anyhow.