On 1/1/2022 2:59 PM, Dave wrote:
I'm going to upgrade the computer soon. I need tor be able to virtualize Windows, but new computers usually don't have a Windows CD (without a lot of extra cost anyway). My understanding is that Win10 will let me create a .vdd file from within. I
have also seen where I can download an .iso file from Microsoft. Then set up Virtual Box.
My questions are:
1. What is best - CD, .VDD file, or .iso and why? Are there any costs and limitations to the iso file that may be important?
2. Does it make any difference if Win10 is Home or Pro edition?
3. Anything else I should ask?
Thanks!
Dave
Windows has a license key and the notion of activation.
This is still policed.
In Windows 10, moving Windows would result in a notification in the
lower right corner, that Windows needs to be activated. The Personalize
portion of Settings, may then have messages in it, indicating you
cannot change things. You can however, change the background from the
swirly blue stuff to some other colour.
On Windows 7 Enterprise, a lack of activation causes the OS to run
for half an hour, before it unceremoniously shuts down. It does not
even do a "clean" shutdown. The file system is shut down dirty. It will
make various "noises" indicating it is going to do something rotten soon,
so you can get a half hour out of it, then shut it down before it shuts down.
On Windows XP, if you moved a disk from one machine to another, the
Intel storage driver worked on both the machines, so the disk would
load, but in some cases activation would crash/hang the system before
you could do anything. In other cases, you would be given "72 hours"
to "resolve the activation issue".
*******
The nature of the problem has not gone away. The symptoms are
a bit different in each case.
When you virtualize Windows, the original environment could
see your Soundblaster X-Fi card on the bus. When you install
the VHD in VirtualBox and boot it, that sound card is no longer
on the bus. *All* the emulated hardware is different. The OS
goes "Hey! We're not in Kansas any more". In particular, the
NIC MAC address is changed, and that has a high weight in
determining activation status.
Sure, you can virtualize Windows 10, run it in VirtualBox,
bring all your software with you. Any expensive licenced software,
will do its own activation analysis, determine this is not Kansas
and deactivate the licensing.
Dongle based software, where a dongle authenticates expensive
software, that actually works better in cases like this, as you
can do passthru USB in Virtualbox.
This program, is a demonstration of virtualization. It's only
disadvantage is that sometimes the "dimensions" of the things
you're putting in a virtual machine, are a bit too big. This program
freezes the state of C: using VSS Shadow Copy, then creates the VHD
for each partition selected.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd
You generally don't want output in VHDX, as that is less portable.
VHD is good for 2TB worth of stuff, and realistically speaking,
you don't want to be toting around anything even remotely
that big. For me, 20GB is the size of a typical VM.
Right this very minute, using the resources you have in hand,
you can virtualize the C: on your current machine and run it
in VirtualBox right on your current machine, and see two screens
that look the same on your desktop.
Windows 7 Backup in Windows 10, stores partitions in VHDX format.
Windows 7 Backup in Windows 7, stores partitions in VHD format.
Macrium Reflect backup software, maybe Version 6 or so, has
"img2vhd.exe" in it, and can convert an MRIMG into a VHD.
The latest Macrium, Macrium 8, doesn't have img2vhd.exe, but
you might be able to take a MRIMG anyway and an older copy
of img2vhd and still convert it. Macrium Version 6 cannot back
up Windows 10 any more, unless you're running 6.3.1865 or so,
with support for ruined NTFS $BITMAP and so on.
There are a few utilities of that nature around.
Windows also has the ability to boot a VHD file, from the
boot menu, but when I tested that, it got into some sort of
loop. But that's to show you some of the more kooky options.
Summary: Loads of fun await. You can start right now, this
very instant.
VirtualBox in Linux, can read the "disk" at 600MB/sec
but with a bit of performance jitter. VirtualBox on
Windows can read the "disk" at 100MB/sec. Those are
examples showing there are differences caused by host
and whether paravirtualization drivers are available.
In Linux, I use some RAM to make a TMPFS /tmp and load
the VHD into that. But that's for one-time VirtualBox ops.
You'd probably want a more permanent configuration of some
sort. For the most part, using special hosting for the
VHD file like that (keeping it on a NVMe), is a
waste of time, but it does not stop me from trying.
Windows 11 virtualization ? Mostly, forget it. I've done it,
but it's just not worth it.
Paul
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