Recovery media seems tied to the physical machine, but VirtualBox is portrayed as comprehensive.

If you have your machine's Windows Product Key, is that version of the OS compatible with VirtualBox even though you won't be booting the machine it is tied to?

Does virtualization demand retail package OS?

I'm not quite clear what you are asking, but I ran Win8 in Virtualbox VM for a number of years.

In my experience, if you want to run Windows in a virtual machine, that version of Windows must be registered just as if it were on bare metal.

If you have windows, you have the EULA for your specific software so read through that for pertinent information. On my instal of W-10 I see below:

and just below that:

I'd suggest you read the EULA for your specific version of windows as there are minor variations. I believe you can install a second system as backup but not actually use it without violating their license agreement.

The recovery partition on your windows installed on the hard drive, can that be used to recover an install in a virtual machine. I seriously doubt it but if you seriously want an answer, you should be at the microsoft support site or a windows forum.

Most vm's don't really support physical but you can get it to work

A VM can indeed boot any bootable media usually.

I kind of assume windows PE or whatever the environment is might at some point fail. A lot of the keys are in the bios.

That's the info. It's a lot easier to ask the question than to get involved hoping it will work when it doesn't. Since I do not know how a VM can work when recovery media is tied to hardware, I am out of my league.

Re. the copyright issue, I think nothing of Windows XP & 7 in a VM for a machine that won't be using the OS. If VM works as well it will eventually replace them. They were bought.

I think this is the answer you're looking for: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=78325

Short answer - You should be able to use the 25 digit license key in a Win7 VM, but only on the same machine that the key is attached to.

I'd copy that partition to a new location to protect it. Then I'd play with that copy.

Most but not all OEM's don't pay full price for Windows. They buy a million or so rights. They have all sorts of ways to use the enviroment and authenticate.

I am not sure what you mean, assuming a VM will be on a different, newer/faster machine.

If you mean I can only use the key for the recovery media version of the OS, that would make sense. Otherwise nothing would be virtual. I am not going to try to run Windows in Linux on a machine with 2GB.

This depends upon what type of Windows license you have.

If it is full retail, then yes you can install it on a new machine (either physical or virtual), provided that you're only using that key on one machine.

If it is an OEM/pre-installed license, then no you cannot legally transfer it.

The short answer is no.

When Windows installs on bare metal, it creates a hardware abstraction layer (HAL), that looks at the motherboard, disk controller and other hardware that defines the system.
Recovery partitions contain an image of the original install.

The virtualised hardware in a VM is different. The Windows install will detect this and refuse to boot.

I see. So I am dependent upon a retail OS or hack to use my old software in a virtual machine.

You can't even secure recovery media of old hardware if the manufacter ends support, which should make us wonder what we bought with the hardware.

I am only concerned if it would work. If so it's like ripping a CD you bought to put on your phone. Anyone would do it without resistance.

No. Microsoft have long since shut down the Win 7 activation servers.

At this point, you could try running a P2V conversion on a pre-activated installation, but it'll probably detect that it's on different (emulated) hardware and de-activate itself.

There was at least one virtual machine software that had a pretty good Physical to Virtual program. It wasn't 100% and tended to work on business pro machines.

At one time Windows would let some few differences in hardware to either allow or disallow the HAL issue. Recovery partition could be a windows PE that didn't care what hardware but the image they have may be difficult to use.

I bought maybe a sort of not fully legal Windows 7 to put on a modern intel processor and motherboard. It was almost impossible for me to get the wim corrected with the new usb driver. I did have to call MS to get it activated.