Impossible to launch process without specifiend the password.

[aGGeRReS]

Host OS - Ubuntu 14.04, Guest OS - Windows7 x32, VirtualBox 5.0.16,

python 2.7.6, pyvbox 1.0.0

Hello. I was trying to launch program on the guest OS. First I tried using pyvbox and Python in order to do this task, but when I failed I tried using Linux console for this. So I was launching following command:

VBoxManage guestcontrol "Windows7" --username win7 run --exe C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe  --wait-stdout  -- "C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe" "/C" "tasklist"

Note: user account win7 doesn't have any password.

It raised following error:

VBoxManage: error: VERR_ACCOUNT_RESTRICTED 
VBoxManage: error: Details: code VBOX_E_IPRT_ERROR (0x80bb0005), component GuestSessionWrap, interface IGuestSession, callee nsISupports 
VBoxManage: error: Context: "WaitForArray(ComSafeArrayAsInParam(aSessionWaitFlags), 30 * 1000, &enmWaitResult)" at line 938 of file VBoxManageGuestCtrl.cpp

After several attempts I found that if I will use another user account which has password everything works just fine:

VBoxManage guestcontrol "Windows7" --verbose  --username user --password user run --exe "C:\\
Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe" -- cmd.exe /c tasklist

Image Name                     PID Session Name        Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ======== ================ =========== ============
System Idle Process              0 Services                   0         12 K
System                           4 Services                   0        532 K
smss.exe                       264 Services                   0        688 K
csrss.exe                      340 Services                   0      2,848 K
wininit.exe                    388 Services                   0      3,128 K
csrss.exe                      400                            1      3,572 K
winlogon.exe                   440                            1      5,556 K
......

So this is either a bug, or just an undocumented feature.

Please, make notes about that in the manual, because now there https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch08.html#vboxmanage-guestcontrol following is stated: "Password of the specified user account. If not given, an empty password is assumed."

[pentagonik]

The manual is correct: If no password is specified, an empty password is assumed. The error you got, however, tells that the account you're trying to use is restricted on the guest OS. This can mean a variety of things, depending on the guest OS -- on Windows, for example, this could mean that there is a password restriction set, the password has been expired or the account is in a disabled state.

So neither a bug, nor a undocumented feature. Therefore closing this defect.