[Bug]: Windows Guest Black Screen

[syborgxx]

Version

trunk/main

Host OS Type

Linux

Host OS name + version

Fedora 43 6.18.16-200.fc43.x86_64

Host Architecture

x86

Guest OS Type

Windows

Guest Architecture

x86

Guest OS name + version

Windows 11

Component

Other

What happened?

My Win11 guest OS performed updates yesterday and after the updates I get a black screen after login. I thought there was a video issue so I cycled thru the various options in the VirtualBox Manager with no joy. I confirmed that the guest machine is running by opening the Win11 guest task manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc. The task manager opens and I can use it to run tasks.

How can we reproduce this?

Log is attached. I'm not sure how to reproduce.
log.txt

Did you upload all of your necessary log files, screenshots, etc.?

• Yes, I've uploaded all pertinent files to this issue.

[dgrigor7]

Hello.
Could you check if:

1. the issue is also observed with "3D acceleration" enabled in a settings of your Win11 VM
2. the explorer.exe process is visible in Task Manager when the screen is black

[syborgxx]

1. Yes, I tried with "3D acceleration" both selected and unselected with the same result. 2. Just checked and explorer.exe is present in Task Manager. I killed and restarted the process and the black screen persisted.

…

On Fri, 2026-03-20 at 09:37 -0700, Dmitrii Grigorev wrote: dgrigor7 left a comment (VirtualBox/virtualbox#596) Hello. Could you check if:    1. the issue is also observed with "3D acceleration" enabled in a settings of your Win11 VM    2. the explorer.exe process is visible in Task Manager when the screen is black — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>