[conspire] VirtualBox

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> * Not getting install media with a computer makes this difficult.
> From the point of view of the profit motivated computer supplier, this
> sort of makes sense.  90% of the disks will never be used.  When I
> wanted to replace XP, I bought a disk online. It was labeled, "Only
> for installation on brand-D computer."

Grey-market product, you see.  In some cases, IIRC it's actually custom
software to some degree.  In other cases, not at all.

Anyway, what I said was that a preload is complete unless you also have
a _retail copy_ of MS-Windows.  A grey-market copy is, or can be, a
problematic, questionable substitute for a retail edition.

When you 'bought a disk online', the cheapest and most numerous editions
were all grey-market, so naturally you bought one of those.  I think few
MS-Windows these days have even _seen_ a full retail edition.  I also am
not sure what the latter costs, except I figure (as I said) that it's
'real money'.  Personally, I've not been a customer since Windows for
Workgroups 3.11.

> * Of the suggestions offered, I am inclined to follow the advise to
> get the Win 10 update. 

Why not give VMware's P2V (physical to virtual converter) a try, so you
can cram your current MS-Windows installation into a virtual machine?
Seems to me, you're entitled to control the machine and make it work the
way you want to -- though I've always been a bit stubborn, that way.