[vox] Changing your OEM Windows 7 from Dual Boot to Virtual Machine

[Jeff Newmiller]

The procedure appears to never retrieve the hardware UUID from your bare metal install. If you are trying to transition from a license associated with your existing windows install, wouldn't you want to continue using that uuid? Without it,  wouldn't you need to buy at least one new license? 
-- 
Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On May 17, 2016 6:18:27 AM PDT, Rod Roark <rod at sunsetsystems.com> wrote:
>I have a laptop that came with Windows 7 and added Linux Mint for dual 
>boot, and have always been annoyed by the need to interrupt my Mint 
>session to do something in Windows (usually screen sharing in Skype).  
> From time to time I've thought it would be nice to put it in a VM 
>instead, but the task seemed either too much trouble or more money than
>
>it was worth.  Mainly I hated the thought of sending more money to 
>Microsoft for something I already had.
>
>When I somehow messed up the Windows partition and made it unbootable 
>this became more pressing.  Also I wanted to take advantage of the free
>
>upgrade to Win 10 before it expires on July 29.
>
>With some web searching I learned that it's possible to install a 
>standard Windows 7 into a VirtualBox VM using an OEM product key. I was
>
>able to do this and then upgrade to Win 10.  It occurs me that the
>steps 
>may be useful to some of you here, so I am outlining them below.  This 
>assumes you will upgrade it to Win 10... if not, modify accordingly.
>
>o Look on the Microsoft sticker on your computer and note the Windows 
>version and product key.
>
>o Find an ISO download for the Windows 7 SP1 flavor that matches your 
>OEM install.  It will likely be a torrent as MS no longer makes them 
>available unless you have a non-OEM product key. File names and their 
>SHA1 checksums may be found here:
>
>   https://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/downloads/hh442898
>
>o Download it, compute the SHA1 checksum and either verify it against 
>the above or do a web search for that checksum to make sure it's legit.
>
>o Make a VirtualBox VM for Windows 10 with at least 3 GB RAM and 40 GB 
>virtual disk. Yes you will initially be installing Win 7 but it's 
>important that it has the CPU support for Win 10. Below we assume you 
>named it "WinVM".
>
>o Do this to get the hardware UUID of the new VM:
>
>   VBoxManage showvminfo WinVM | grep 'Hardware UUID'
>
>o Do this to cause future clones of the VM to have the same hardware
>UUID:
>
>   VBoxManage modifyvm WinVM --hardwareuuid xxxx
>   ... where xxxx is the UUID shown by the previous step.
>
>o Attach the ISO to the DVD drive of the new VM and start it up.
>
>o Install Win 7 and put in your OEM product key when prompted.
>
>o After the install make sure Windows 7 is activated.
>
>o Run Internet Explorer inside the VM and install this single update:
>
>   https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3135445
>
>   This installs a newer version of Windows Update which is helpful 
>because the original one is very slow!  The new one is also slow, but 
>hopefully not so much.
>
>o Also at this time download and install the "sdelete" utility from
>here:
>
>   https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/sdelete.aspx
>
>o Run Windows Update and install all the important and optional
>updates. 
>This will take hours.  There will be some reboots involved.
>
>o You should now have the Windows 10 upgrade offer on your taskbar. 
>Proceed with that upgrade.
>
>o Make sure the new Windows installation is activated.
>
>o Install VirtualBox Guest Additions into the VM.
>
>o Run Disk Cleanup to remove all unnecessary files.
>
>o Open a command prompt in the VM, go to the directory where you put 
>sdelete and type this command to zero out unused space:
>
>   sdelete -z
>
>o Make a clone of the VM using the VirtualBox GUI.  You might call it 
>"Win10". Because you ran sdelete this will take up much less disk space
>
>on the host computer.
>
>o Boot up the clone and make sure it is still activated.
>
>o Remove the old WinVM machine with the VirtualBox GUI.
>
>Enjoy!
>
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