[sf-lug] My latest NUC adventure

[Ken Shaffer]

Hmmmm, reading my notes, a thought occurred to me:  If Windows lets
you in once, copy the vm before running, and only run a fresh copy
each time.  Every time is now the first time, so no activation needed!
 Didn't try that thought.;^)
Ken

On 7/16/19, Ken Shaffer <kenshaffer80 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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