<div dir="ltr">I'll offer up my non-expert opinion and say that you will be fine with a single VM on removable media running Windows10 regardless of which machine you fire it up on. My reasoning is straight forward; it is very much common practice to have virtual environments with many physical hosts and to move VMs between hosts on a regular basis. Granted that is a more complex environment that just removable media but the concept is the same. Moving VMs between physical hosts is afterall one of the whole points of virtualizing so if Windows10 stopped working everytime you did that what would be the point?<div><br></div><div>As far as testing goes, I have in the past had Windows VMs on a Linux workstation and when I upgraded to a newer system I just copied the VMs over and fired them up on the new machine, no problem. (this was Windows7, but I expect W10 would be the same).</div><div><br></div><div>However, the one thing that I don't believe will work is to P2V a workstation that was purchased with Windows10 already on it. That version of Windows is OEM licensing and I believe it still has very specific terms that the license lives and dies on the original hardware only. I'm sure you can P2V it and it will run, but it may complain? That being said I'm sure there is a way to re-activate it by buying the proper Windows10 license.</div><div><br></div><div>John</div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jan 21, 2021 at 11:28 PM Alberto Abrao <<a href="mailto:alberto@abrao.net">alberto@abrao.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p><br>
</p>
<div>On 2021-01-21 10:03 p.m., Trevor Cordes
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>On 2021-01-21 Kevin McGregor wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Oops! Brain tired. Should read "If the two Linux hosts have the same
CPUs (manufacturer and gen) you should have no problem".
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre>Yes, in this case the physical hardware would be identical.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Means nothing. There's still the GUID of the mainboard, which is
very much different even when everything else is the same.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>However, there is conflict between Alberto's & Kevin's answers... has
anyone actually tried it?</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I do have experience with Windows and its activation perks...
mostly for the consumer version, which incidentally is what you
want.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>And for sure you weren't using a corporate Windows license key? (And
not a Server version either.) I recall hearing something like Alberto
said re: non-corporate Windows detecting it was in a VM and complaining.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I am less concerned about the "being on a VM" and more about
"making sure you have a reliable anchor for it". It would not
matter for a sitting duck, but you want to dance around with it. I
am reasonably sure that you don't want to be typing lengthy codes
on your phone when calling the Microsoft Activation Hotline.
(Thank you for calling Microsoft! Which product would you like to
activate? Please say Windows, Office, ... ugh).<br>
</p>
<p>Even then, we want to abide to Microsoft's terms.<br>
</p>
<p>And here
(<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_English.htm" target="_blank">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Useterms/Retail/Windows/10/UseTerms_Retail_Windows_10_English.htm</a>)
we find:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.75in;line-height:normal"><b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif">b.</span></b><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif"> <b>Device.</b>
In this agreement, “device” means a
hardware system (whether physical or virtual) with an internal
storage device
capable of running the software. A hardware partition or blade
is considered to
be a device.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 10pt 0.75in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI",sans-serif">(iv)
<b>Use in a virtualized
environment</b>. This license allows you to install only one
instance of the
software for use on one device, whether that device is
physical or virtual. If
you want to use the software on more than one virtual device,
you must obtain a
separate license for each instance.</span></span></p>
<p>Keep in mind I am not a lawyer (really? lol). Now, as with
everything Microsoft licensing, this is ambiguous enough to have
you thread the grey area if you have a single licence for the
dancing VM, as it states a device meaning a <b>hardware </b>system,
physical or virtual. It does mention "one virtual device", and we
can argue that we are talking about a single virtual environment ,
even though it sometimes travels between different hosts. Now, we
are talking about consumer, retail versions here, so I may not be
grasping at straws when I point this. That said, keep in mind that
I am not a lawyer (you don't say? :D), so my opinion is
worth...yeah. That said, stay with me.</p>
<p>Even assuming that would be perfectly legit, you still have the
problem of keeping the activation when changing hardware. The
virtual environment may be abstract enough that it does not detect
enough of a change and just pretends nothing ever happened. Or it
does smell a rat and asks for activation. Well, please see above
if that happens. In this case, if our assumption is right, it
would be OK for licensing, but not nice at all to administrate.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>I guess the big part of the question is, if Windows doesn't have a
blanket anti-VM block in it, how much of the host hw id info really
does "seep" into to guest...</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>As much as you let in, for KVM at least.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>The problem here that testing it might "waste" a paid Windows license.
Even if we bought 2 licenses and activated twice, I'm not convinced the
activation code won't get angry at going back and forth between the 2
boxes.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>It will not, because the code goes to Microsoft only once. When
you pass the tables like I described on my previous email, it
results in a hash that Windows is able to pass onto the activation
servers. <br>
</p>
<p>- Hardware hash is passed to Microsoft activation servers.<br>
- If there is no key tied to it, it reports "not activated". Boo.
Gimme key!<br>
- You have the key in. Let's say, Pro version.<br>
- Key is now tied to the hash.<br>
- You're activated!<br>
</p>
<p>So now you nuke it from orbit and start fresh. Same process
happen again, but this time:</p>
<p>- Hardware hash is passed to Microsoft activation servers.<br>
- Uncle Bill says: "oh, I remember you! You have a licence here,
but let's talk first: what are you, really?"<br>
- "I am a Pro, dude, but I have no l33t codes on me, sry"<br>
- "Just as I remembered. Sweet! I remember your l33t codes from
times gone by, no need to bore me again. Here, a cookie. Off you
go."<br>
- Activated!<br>
</p>
<p>And that alone is *enough*. With that, it quickly finds out if
you're activated or not, and off it goes. No key, no rearm,
nothing. You will *never* be prompted for a key if there is a
valid licence tied to your hardware's hash, thus, by passing the
SLIC bits to the VM, and that physical hardware having a good
valid Windows 10 licence previously activated with Microsoft, it
will just take care of itself. Done. You will never type a key for
that hardware ever again, assuming you 1) never phone-activate the
key on another device, thus revoking the authorization for the one
to which it is tied (true for RETAIL versions, keep that in mind,
as OEM licences are not able to be revoked in this manner, at
least theoretically); and 2) use the same version of Windows (e.g.
Windows 10 Pro key = Windows 10 Pro install. Home = Home. You get
the idea).</p>
<p>That also means that both machines would have a Windows licence
*tied to their hardware*, which could be used even after the VM
setup is no longer warranted, either for another VM, or for a bare
metal install should it ever be repurposed as a beefy workstation,
for example.<br>
</p>
<p>Now, it remains to be seen if that's feasible using VirtualBox.
As I said, one is able to do that with KVM.</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Man, do I hate Windows and non-FLOSS. Maybe I need to see if my
customer could instead forget Windows and make everything work in
WINE...
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>As you mentioned WINE, I suggest you investigate that and see if
he is happy. If that is not an option, let me know and we can
research something that is sure to steer your client far away from
uncle Bill's fury.<br>
</p>
<p>Kind regards,<br>
Alberto Abrao<br>
</p>
</div>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>John Lange<br><br></div></div></div>