AppControl interfered with VirtualBox causing any VM to not load

General
1

Good morning,

This morning I installed AppControl 1.0.0.145 on Windows 11 Pro 26200.7840.
I really like this tool and had no issues for a couple hours.

Until I decided to open a VirtualBox VM. It gave an error supR3HardenedWinReSpawn what: 5 VERR_INVALID_NAME (-104) - Invalid (malformed) file/path name. I have a few VMs so I tried to load the last one I created on 2-15-26, this one also wouldn’t load due to this error. None would.

I searched around and found posts for this error (from 2021) where the VB devs asked the user to start removing the more recently installed apps one at a time until you find the one that is blocking VB from loading a VM. They did and that indeed fixed it for them.

Well, I figured I’d do the same. I uninstalled AppControl as it was the last one installed, rebooted and then attempted to open a VM, and it worked without issue. Maybe the monitoring of apps loading is giving VirtualBox issues with opening the VM file?

Anyway, maybe you can test this situation out? I am using VB Version 7.2.4 r170995 (Qt6.8.0 on windows) with the matching Extension Pack. I would love to use this app, if you have the time and inclination to look at this I’d be grateful. I’ll gladly be a tester if need be.

Again, thanks for sharing this tool.

2

Sorry for the issue. VirtualBox is a good software and it’s unacceptable if we somehow cause an issue with it.

Question: On your AppControl “Apps” tab, was something related to VirtualBox blocked? That’s the only thing I could imagine it could be. But now AppControl is uninstalled, so you can’t check that anymore? We don’t block anything by default so it must have been blocked there?

3

I’ll reinstall it when I get some time and retest.

1 Like
4

Yes, I think that it must have been blocked somehow by AppControl because we don’t block anything by default and our app should never interfere with something if it is not explicitly blocked. But, if we are somehow interfering somehow of course it’s not acceptable and we’ll try to figure it out and fix it ASAP.

5

Okay, here is a screen recording Screen Recording 2026-02-21 075914.mp4. I hope VirtualBox 7.2.6, open a VM, everything works. I install appControl and open VB and attempt to open the same VM. It errors and won’t load. I then uninstall app control and everything works again.

I know VB can be finicky.

1 Like
6

The recording was very helpful, thank you.

We researched this in detail and found that in the VirtualBox forums it says that it cannot be used with apps like AppControl.

This is because VirtualBox is uses the exact same Windows system that we do for app launch detection. So, there appears to be no solution at this time besides maybe using another alternative VM, or not using AppControl.

7

Ah, as I had expected. Too bad, I really do like your app and I hope more people will find it and use it. Thanks for sharing it with us.

1 Like
8

Thanks. Yeah, I am surprised that is their only suggestion. Maybe Microsoft will have an update where apps can’t cause issues with other apps this way.

9

Just ran into this issue.

I only use virtualbox every now and then.
So i’ve found a nice solution.

Exit AppControl.
Stop the Appcontrol service.
Start virtualbox

When you’re done just do the reverse.

1 Like
10

@reaver56

I will share with our team and maybe it can give us a clue on how we can fix this on our side somehow.