[Solved] Unable To Uninstall Or Repair Oracle VirtualBox From Windows

Oracle VirtualBox is a nice software to run virtual machines on Windows as well as other operating systems. VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4, 2.6, 3.x and 4.x), Solaris and OpenSolaris, OS/2, and OpenBSD. I was running GNS3 and Ubuntu on Windows using Oracle VirtualBox. But lately, I had to uninstall the software. For some reason I was not able to remove Oracle VirtualBox for sometime but finally got it removed. If you are facing a similar issue, you can try this.

The Oracle VirtualBox version in use was:
Oracle VirtualBox 5.0.20
Windows 7 64bit

Issue: Unable To Uninstall Or Repair Oracle VirtualBox From Windows
Oracle VirtualBox appears in the list of installed programs under Control panel.
Upon clicking "Uninstall" the uninstall process startd but stops prematurely.

Quite surprisingly, when I used another software to uninstall (RevoUninstaller), the Oracle VirtualBox is not visible in the list of installed programs.


Here is what I did:

• Attempted running the Oracle VirtualBox installer again as administrator and selected "repair". It looks for the .msi file.
• Opened Command Prompt, navigated to the Oracle VirtualBox setup file.
• Run the command (without the quotes) : "VirtualBox-5.0.20-106931-Win.exe --extract --path c:\Temp"

 

• Ran the .msi files extracted but encountered errors 1603.

While I have seen some posts online where users have done sone registry edits, I don't prefer tampering with the registry manually.

• Downloaded CCleaner and cleaned registry.
• Switched off the computer.

• After restart, ran the Oracle VirtualBox setup file by running as administrator. 
• Selected "remove" and this time the uninstall completed successfully.