I installed VirtualBox-4.0.0-69151-Linux_amd64.run and had some problems (I have removed it and gone back to 3.2.12).

My "main" virtual machine is Windows XP which I use for only two applications, Stamps.com and TurboTax 2010. Been working just fine through multiple versions of VirtualBox. My 64-bit server is a Dell Inspiron 1750 with 4G RAM. VirtualBox started and when I started XP, it reported that there wasn't enough host system RAM available (!) and some nonsense about freeing memory on the host. Hmm. OK, cut XP down from 1G to 800K and XP started.

I did install the guest additions and the Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-4.0.0-69151.vbox-extpack, recommended for VirtualBox 4.0.

I started TurboTax and it failed (and continues to fail) with
Hoo-boy. Something got screwed up.

I should note that XP and TurboTax worked just fine with VirtualBox 3.2.12.

OK, enough of that nonsense, 4.0 is just not ready for prime time. I uninstalled it (using the provided uninstall.sh) and reinstalled VirtualBox-3.2.12-68302-Linux_amd64.run, the guest additions for it and attempted starting TurboTax with the same fatal error. No joy in Mudville.

I suspect that I will need to remove TurboTax 2010 and reinstall it but the CD-ROM is 200 miles away and I will not be able to do that until after the 30th. I also suspect that, nope, I'm not going to reinstall VirtualBox 4.0 until there's an update that may fix whatever problem this might be (it's been reported at the VirtualBox community web page).

There appear to be multiple problems with VirtualBox 4.0; a number of folks have reported system halts, crashes and other thrilling results on various platforms, both 32- and 64-bit, and, for now, I'd recommend that it may be safer than sorrier to just wait a while to upgrade to VirtualBox 4.0 -- your mileage may, of course, vary.

Hope this helps some.

One guess ...
Ever tried to use System Restore in XP. for a time in which the program was working?

good luck

Thanks for this, but... I really (I'm not kidding) have no idea whether there even is a system restore point that I could go back to. Or how to find it. Or how to actually use it. I try to avoid dealing with Winders completely but, alas, the Great Unwashed continue to buy the blasted thing and keep building a few useful applications for it so there you are. Thank goodness there are VirtualBox (even if the latest and greatest doesn't seem to quite work) and VMware and other ways to avoid the joys of dealing with a really crappy system. This time, though, I got my fingers whacked and now have to figure out what to do to get back in business. In the spirit of the season, Bah, humbug!

Thanks again for the suggestion and the best of the season to you.

[edit]
So, who knew? Learn new things about old stuff every day.

Learned about System Restore. Restored prior to installation of VirtualBox-4.0. Did the Patch Tuesday updates. Started TurboTax 2010. Got
OK, that's better, at least it doesn't fail with the prior message (and I kind of figured that it's hosed and I'll have to reinstall it when I get home).

This doesn't change the original problem -- VirtualBox-4.0 appears to have caused the problem in the first place and I urge anyone thinking about installing it to do so with caution (and, you know, back the bloody thing up first -- which I did not do, but then I've never had any problem whatsoever with VirtualBox prior to this).
[/edit]
Hope this helps some.

I'm running 7 ultimate 64 as host and xp pro sp3 as guest. I had the same problem after upgrading to VirtualBox 4. I'm running 4.0.0 r69151. I uninstalled the vbox additions, booted into safe mode, then installed them again but without the 3d acceleration. Rebooted. TurboTax comes up just fine.

Hope this works for you.

I'm running the same version of VirtualBox (and the extension pack) here with no problems for the apps I run, but I don't use Turbotax. The wnta.config file error is due to rolling back to the system restore point according to the info here:
http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/i.../SLN12424.html

Their suggested fix is to repair Turbotax:
http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/i.../GEN12539.html

However, I don't know whether the install CD is required once you click the repair button in the Add/Remove Programs area.

Thanks (sorry to hear that you had the same problem).

I will give this a shot and will not do the 3D acceleration when I install the additions (don't really like having software one release back). I mean, who needs 3D acceleration to run Turbotax and Stamps.com, eh? Seems like you have to have the VirtualBox Extensions, though, if you want USB support so I expect that'll have to be installed while I'm at it.

Thanks again for the input.

Thank you for this -- gives me (and, I hope, others before they run into this) a place to start.

Doesn't work with VB 4

Tried everything, uninstall & re-install.

Contacted TT and got a new download of a new version of the software.

Nothing works.

It's a bad registry key for intuit.

If you get it working let me know. This is probably the last year I buy this software, every year it gets more cumbersome and harder to deal with.

- CH

I went back to VirtualBox 3.2.12-68302, did the fix suggested at http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/i.../GEN12539.html and TurboTax worked as expected (already done and filed).

Some discussion about this problem has been bouncing around, and it has been suggested that the initial VirtualBox 4.x (VirtualBox-4.0.0-69151-Linux_amd64.run) had some problems and that VirtualBox-4.0.2-69518-Linux_amd64.run might be a better bet.

I have downloaded but not installed 4.0.2-69518 as yet (I'm waiting for the feds to send the refund so I can close out TurboTax for 2010) but will be "upgrading" to it soon. I don't know why the problem occurred, whether due to some weird thing in TurboTax or in VirtualBox (I suspect both).

Anyway, that's pretty much that and all is well that ends.

Hope this helps some.

I don't know if it will address what's happening with Turbo Tax but there's a newer version (4.0.4) of VirtualBox available. It does sound like your approach of using VB 3.2 until your taxes are complete for the year is the smart way to go.

Hi All,

I'm using virtualbox 4.0.4-70112~Ubuntu~Lucid (x32) and it's a no go. I'll do the downgrade and then file my taxes.

- CH

-------------------------------------

I filed a bug report at Oracle: http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/8384

I had the similar experience with 4.0.4 on windows:

1. At the beginning everything was fine: 3.1.2, windows XP host and guest.
2. Upgraded to 4.0.4 (still regret that)
3. guest OS cannot boot normally.
4. tried different settings: turn on/off 2d, 3d, IO-APIC, etc...,
5. uninstalled 4.0.4 and reinstalled 3.1.2, still the same issue. Also tried different settings in 3.1.2. It seems like the guest OS entered into some state and couldn't get out.
6. Found that "last known good configuration" works on both 3.1.2 and 4.0.4 but still trying to figure out how to restore the guest OS from this "known good configuration" (I don't want to press F8 every time)

To be fair, the current problem is more in XP but this experience made me think how serious should I relay on virtualbox: if an upgrade cannot guarantee 100% compatibility, it's losing a huge point of virtualization - having an isolated environment that runs every where.

I've got virtualbox 4.04 OSE running here on Ubuntu Studio 11.04 beta, with an XP guest. It's my daily client image (SAP, DB tools, Outlook, VPN, etc), working nicely.

We have about 10 people here running similar, the only issues we see tend to be driven by XP service packs.

Regarding settings - IO/APIC off, 2d accel on, 640MB RAM, VDI

Sorry to know that you've problems -- I should note that, running VirtualBox-4.0.4-70112-Linux_amd64.run that I've had zero problems with XP and with existing applications. I have, because this is a new machine, added Win7 64-bit and haven't had any problems with that either (but, then, it doesn't have any applications -- save Firefox -- installed in it; mostly it just does "critical updates" and is looking forward to this Tuesday's, what, 17 of 'em?). The old box (also 64-bit) hasn't exhibited any further problems either.

Perhaps a note about the settings (these may only be relevant to 64-bit).

I gave 4096 MB of RAM (out of 8G), mostly just for the heck of it.

In the System settings, Enable I/O APIC needs to be set as does Enable PAE/NX and Enable VT-x/-AMD/V.

Display seems to need at least 32 MB.

Storage appears to like Use host I/O cache set.

I use the OSS Audio Driver.

And USB is all selected.

Don't know if this will help, but I do hope it will help some.

Thanks.

It was a test environment (XP Sp2) with limited HD (10G HD) and everything was working fine so at some point last year, I stopped all update process and hoped the environment working forever. My host machine has 3G RAM running XP Pro Sp3. I allocated 1G for the guest system. Just now I tried the settings you mentioned but still no luck. I also disabled the auto restart options in guest xp (otherwise the guest xp just keeps booting and restarting). The guest xp halts at the point right after it changes the screen resolution. Will try all latest SP and updates tomorrow to see if update resolves the issue.

Thanks again.
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4/13: tried update but didn't resolve the problem. Finally installed from the original SP2 cd (recover install) and now the system boots normally but lost a few settings. Glad it finally started working.

Thanks every one!