Startup of a VM with a hidden window using VirtualBoxVM.exe is not possible with VirtualBox 7.0.8

[Mikhail Kovalev]

Hello,

prior to VirtualBox 7.0.8, it was possible to start VirtualBox with a hidden windows using a command "VirtualBoxVM.exe --startvm "vmname"" with the SW_HIDE flag set in the STARTUPINFO structure. See https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/13243

With VirtualBox 7.0.8 this is not possible any longer. The STARTUPINFO seems to be still propagated via the process tree to the 3rd instance of VirtualBoxVM.exe and if I try to start a VM which doesn't exist, the window with the error message is hidden. But if I try to start an existing VM, the VM window is visible.

If fixing this on a short term is not possible, it would be great if you could tell us which change in the code of VirtualBox 7.0.8 is responsible for this problem.

Thank you

[Dsen]

Hello,
I'm trying to bisect the reason of it. Could you please clarify "prior to VirtualBox 7.0.8"? Does that mean this functionality was working for you in 7.0.6?

[Mikhail Kovalev]

Hello. Yes, with 7.0.6 this functionality is working fine.

A simple python script for testing:

import subprocess

command = [
    r'C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VirtualBoxVM.exe', "--startvm",
    "Test VM"
]
startupinfo = subprocess.STARTUPINFO()
startupinfo.dwFlags |= subprocess.STARTF_USESHOWWINDOW
startupinfo.wShowWindow = subprocess.SW_HIDE
subprocess.Popen(command, startupinfo=startupinfo)

[Dsen]

Ah, right.
Thank you for additional information!
It appears the issue you observing was causing by the bug which was already fixed for another public defect ticketref:21664 (there were even few of such defects), we just were not aware of yet another manifestation of bug. Fix will be a part of subsequent maintenance release. And we can also provide you with corresponding patch if you are going to build VBox earlier.

[Klaus Espenlaub]

Fix for visibility (same as fixing the separate HDD icon with some X11 desktop environments)

[Mikhail Kovalev]

Thank you very much!