I ran into this when trying to upgrade my VirtualBox from 4.2.6 to 4.3.6. It was a really frustrating one to fix. There are a few suggested fixes floating around such as:
- Manually installing both VBoxUSBMon.inf and VBoxDrv.inf drivers (didn't work for me)
- Uninstall and reinstall (wasn't possible because the uninstaller kept rolling back)
- Removing the network interfaces manually before installing (they weren't there)
- Install over it (installer for new version kept rolling back)
- Removing the files from user and program file folders, then manually searching/replacing all instances of VirtualBox in the registry (this is brute forcing it and I don't want to resort to this)
None of them worked for me.
What I ended up doing was:
- Grab an old copy of your Virtualbox installer (make sure it's the same version!) from the VirtualBox wiki
- Run the installer
- Select "Repair" (on the old version)
- Reboot
- (optional) Uninstall the old version
- Install the new version
This time it should work!
Simple, no?
Sources
- virtualbox.org • View topic - Cannot access the kernel driver
- The Virtualbox bug: “Cannot access the kernel driver” in Windows
- How to fix “Cannot access the kernel driver” in Oracle VirtualBox
- Get It Fixed: It Fixed it for me - Virtual Box Kernel Error
- VirtualBox upgrade leads to “Cannot access the kernel driver” error
- Problems and solution: Uninstalling VirtualBox old version
- Download_Old_Builds – Oracle VM VirtualBox
