Installing Code Signing Certificates

To avoid popups when performing an unattended installation of the Guest Additions, the code signing certificates used to sign the drivers needs to be installed in the correct certificate stores on the guest operating system. Failure to do this will cause a typical Windows installation to display multiple dialogs asking whether you want to install a particular driver.

On some legacy Windows versions, such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP, the user intervention popups mentioned above are always displayed, even after importing the Oracle certificates.

Installing the code signing certificates on a Windows guest can be done automatically. Use the VBoxCertUtil.exe utility from the cert folder on the Guest Additions installation CD.

Use the following steps:

  1. Log in as Administrator on the guest.

  2. Mount the Guest Additions .ISO.

  3. Open a command line window on the guest and change to the cert folder on the Guest Additions CD.

  4. Run the following command: 

    VBoxCertUtil.exe add-trusted-publisher vbox*.cer --root vbox*.cer

    This command installs the certificates to the certificate store. When installing the same certificate more than once, an appropriate error will be displayed.

To allow for completely unattended guest installations, you can specify a command line parameter to the install launcher: 

VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe /S

This automatically installs the right files and drivers for the corresponding platform, either 32-bit or 64-bit.

By default on an unattended installation on a Vista or Windows 7 guest, there will be the XPDM graphics driver installed. This graphics driver does not support Windows Aero / Direct3D on the guest. Instead, the WDDM graphics driver needs to be installed. To select this driver by default, add the command line parameter /with_wddm when invoking the Windows Guest Additions installer. This is only required for Vista and Windows 7.

For Windows Aero to run correctly on a guest, the guest's VRAM size needs to be configured to at least 128 MB.

For more options regarding unattended guest installations, consult the command line help by using the command: 

VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe /?