[sf-lug] My latest NUC adventure

[Ken Shaffer]

On 7/16/19, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> Quoting Akkana Peck (akkana at shallowsky.com):
>
>> Rick Moen writes:
>> > So, here's a suggestion:  Now would be a really, really good time to
>> > make sure you understand completely, and document off-system for your
>> > future reference, the booting chain you've established for both OSes.
>>
>> That is such a good idea. More than once, I've needed to do
>> maintenance on a machine that had several OSes on it, and found a
>> mess where I had trouble finding out things like which partition
>> owned the grub that it was booting from given that there were
>> multiple partitions each with its own grub.
>>
>> > IMO, it would be (adequacy of RAM permitting) a lot smarter to first
>> > install a base OS using the entire mass storage -- which IMO ought to
>> > be
>> > a Linux distro that will serve as your primary environment -- and then
>> > install any additional OSes as VM 'guest' OSes using a hypervisor layer
>> > such as VirtualBox.
>>
>> What a perfect time for this topic to (re-)arise, since I just spent
>> the morning researching that very question. I'm thinking about
>> buying a new laptop, one with an SSD.
>
>> Since it will invariably come
>> with Windows OEM, and since every now and then it would be nice to be
>> able to check out an ebook from the library without having to ask my
>> husband to do it on his Mac (Adobe Digital Editions stopped working
>> in Wine a couple of years ago), and since SSDs are small and Windows
>> is large, I'd like to move that OEM Windows to a Virtualbox instance
>> on an external spinner disk.
>
> I could be wrong, but what I hear is that if you migrate a Windows
> installation (say, via VMware's free-of-charge downloadable p2v tool,
> VMware vCenter Converter, http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/) to
> a virtual machine, you will of course need to face Microsoft's Product
> Activation process again, but what I heard was that you just telephone
> them as directed and explain you've moved Windows to a VM, and they're
> reported to be reasonable about this.
>
> I'd be interested to hear from someone who's been through the matter.
> In my case, I haven't had MS-Windows on my own machines since Windows
> for Workgroups 3.11, so I have no relevant experience -- but over on
> CABAL's Conspire mailing list we've discussed the technical details of
> such a migration a number of times.  Recapping briefly:
>
> 1.  Non-destructively shrink your Windows partition with one of the
> usual tools, so it's no bigger than it needs to be.
> 2.  Attach a big USB-connected external drive, which I suppose should
> have a big ext4 partition on it.  From a live distro, run the p2v tool
> for Linux to image the Windows parttion to a big honkin' .vmdk file on the
> external USB drive.  This might take an hour.
> 3.  To be totally safe and not risk burning any bridges, extract the
> Windows drive, set it aside as a spare, and put a different blank
> drive into the computer.  (This step can be skipped if one is
> confident, but I wouldn't.)
> 4.  Install native Linux.  Install VirtualBox for Linux.  Copy
> the .vmdk file back from the big external drive.  Create a new
> VM called 'Windows' and point it to the file from the big USB drive,
> and make sure the VM boots correctly.  (VirtualBox can read .vmdk
> files.)  Windows will require Windows Product Activation again, so
> that's where you call Microsoft.
>
> At the end of this fire-drill, you've moved MS-Windows into a VM _and_
> you have a safety copy of installed Windows on the extracted hard drive
> plus (if you wish to keep it) an off-system-stored .vmdk snapshot of
> that same installation.  Plus, you'll be able to use your preferred
> OS as the main (host) OS, while still having concurrent access to
> MS-Windows applications in a VM when you need them.
>
> I'll admit I've not tested the procedure, because I've not needed
> it.  But this might be an alternative (for which I also have no use
> case):

Many years ago, I had a laptop with Windows 7 on which I used the free
vmware converter to create a 36G virtual machine (took 2.5 hrs).  The
vm worked with the free vm player, and
here're my notes on the activation process:

 Windows let me in once, then it claimed it needed another activation.
Since I am running off a modem, and could not start it up unless I logged
in, I had to select the call option. This option displays a 54 digit
installation id which you are asked to read into a machine -- don't
waste your time, the number is invalid because it
was generated with a blank product code.  Click on the change product code
button at the bottom of the screen and enter a valid product code instead
of the blanks.  The product code is the 35 character number on the
certificate of authenticity on the bottom of the laptop or on the
installation CD.  A new installation id will be generated, and it
should work for the activation.

W10 is probably different, but then, w7 would probably run the Adobe
library progarm.
Ken
>
>> The best lead I found was to read the laptop's hardware product key
>> and set a Virtualbox "BIOS passthrough" as described here:
>> https://superuser.com/questions/1313241/install-windows-10-from-an-unbooted-oem-drive-into-virtualbox
>
>
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