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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?
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:
Quote:
we grant you the right to install and run one instance of the software on your device
and just below that:
Quote:
In this agreement, “device” means a hardware system (whether physical or virtual)
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.
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'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.
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 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.
assuming a VM will be on a different, newer/faster machine.
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.
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.
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.
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