<html><head></head><body>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? <br>
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Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On May 17, 2016 6:18:27 AM PDT, Rod Roark <rod@sunsetsystems.com> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre class="k9mail">I have a laptop that came with Windows 7 and added Linux Mint for dual <br />boot, and have always been annoyed by the need to interrupt my Mint <br />session to do something in Windows (usually screen sharing in Skype). <br /> From time to time I've thought it would be nice to put it in a VM <br />instead, but the task seemed either too much trouble or more money than <br />it was worth. Mainly I hated the thought of sending more money to <br />Microsoft for something I already had.<br /><br />When I somehow messed up the Windows partition and made it unbootable <br />this became more pressing. Also I wanted to take advantage of the free <br />upgrade to Win 10 before it expires on July 29.<br /><br />With some web searching I learned that it's possible to install a <br />standard Windows 7 into a VirtualBox VM using an OEM product key. I was <br />able to do this and then upgrade to Win 10. It occurs me that the steps <br />may be useful to some of you
here, so I am outlining them below. This <br />assumes you will upgrade it to Win 10... if not, modify accordingly.<br /><br />o Look on the Microsoft sticker on your computer and note the Windows <br />version and product key.<br /><br />o Find an ISO download for the Windows 7 SP1 flavor that matches your <br />OEM install. It will likely be a torrent as MS no longer makes them <br />available unless you have a non-OEM product key. File names and their <br />SHA1 checksums may be found here:<br /><br /> <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/downloads/hh442898">https://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/downloads/hh442898</a><br /><br />o Download it, compute the SHA1 checksum and either verify it against <br />the above or do a web search for that checksum to make sure it's legit.<br /><br />o Make a VirtualBox VM for Windows 10 with at least 3 GB RAM and 40 GB <br />virtual disk. Yes you will initially be installing Win 7 but it's <br />important that it has the CPU
support for Win 10. Below we assume you <br />named it "WinVM".<br /><br />o Do this to get the hardware UUID of the new VM:<br /><br /> VBoxManage showvminfo WinVM | grep 'Hardware UUID'<br /><br />o Do this to cause future clones of the VM to have the same hardware UUID:<br /><br /> VBoxManage modifyvm WinVM --hardwareuuid xxxx<br /> ... where xxxx is the UUID shown by the previous step.<br /><br />o Attach the ISO to the DVD drive of the new VM and start it up.<br /><br />o Install Win 7 and put in your OEM product key when prompted.<br /><br />o After the install make sure Windows 7 is activated.<br /><br />o Run Internet Explorer inside the VM and install this single update:<br /><br /> <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3135445">https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3135445</a><br /><br /> This installs a newer version of Windows Update which is helpful <br />because the original one is very slow! The new one is also slow, but <br />hopefully not so
much.<br /><br />o Also at this time download and install the "sdelete" utility from here:<br /><br /> <a href="https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/sdelete.aspx">https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/sdelete.aspx</a><br /><br />o Run Windows Update and install all the important and optional updates. <br />This will take hours. There will be some reboots involved.<br /><br />o You should now have the Windows 10 upgrade offer on your taskbar. <br />Proceed with that upgrade.<br /><br />o Make sure the new Windows installation is activated.<br /><br />o Install VirtualBox Guest Additions into the VM.<br /><br />o Run Disk Cleanup to remove all unnecessary files.<br /><br />o Open a command prompt in the VM, go to the directory where you put <br />sdelete and type this command to zero out unused space:<br /><br /> sdelete -z<br /><br />o Make a clone of the VM using the VirtualBox GUI. You might call it <br />"Win10". Because you ran sdelete this will take
up much less disk space <br />on the host computer.<br /><br />o Boot up the clone and make sure it is still activated.<br /><br />o Remove the old WinVM machine with the VirtualBox GUI.<br /><br />Enjoy!<br /><br /><hr /><br />vox mailing list<br />vox@lists.lugod.org<br /><a href="http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox">http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox</a><br /></pre></blockquote></div></body></html>