Disc image of drive C and all progs, then installed on VM on Linux ?

Just a comment: if you were willing to run Win 11, it can be installed on pretty much any PC irrespective of its installer's conditions on TPM, CPU type etc. A couple of workaround methods to do that have been widely published.

As for continuing with Win 10: 2 options.
a. From Oct 25- simply continue, but with no updates.
b. Pay MS (an as yet unknown sum each year, probably doubling each year) for up to 3 years and still receive updates.

Not sure why the workarounds for Win 11 represent a particular threat; the consumer pricing for Win 10 updates will be lower than the figure published for businesses - but yes, probably will be more than people want to pay.

FredM8 said:

Is it possible to make a Disc Image of my current W10, drive C.
Then install that image into a VM on Linux ?

If I can, will all the programmes still work ?
The alternative would be a lengthy re-install of everything just before October 2025.

I will be using VMware player 17.

My rage at Microsoft and it's new restrictions for W11, has forced me to move home.
My Mobo is the ASUS Z97.
It is even TPM 2 compliant !!

Uncle Bill says this machine is only fit for land fill.
What say you ?
At the moment I have installed Linux Zorin on another drive.
Works great !

This image shows my PC info.

For sure this is possible. Easiest way is to clone C drive and hidden partitions to a virtual hard drive .vhdx format. You would be better off using kvm on Linux. @jimbo45 is the kvm expert.

FredM8 said:

Is it possible to make a Disc Image of my current W10, drive C.
Then install that image into a VM on Linux ?

If I can, will all the programmes still work ?
The alternative would be a lengthy re-install of everything just before October 2025.

I will be using VMware player 17.

My rage at Microsoft and it's new restrictions for W11, has forced me to move home.
My Mobo is the ASUS Z97.
It is even TPM 2 compliant !!

Uncle Bill says this machine is only fit for land fill.
What say you ?

As dalchina points out, you could upgrade to Windows 11 with a workaround to skip the system checks at upgrade time. Your i7-4790K is more than capable of running Windows 11.

If you want to go the VM route, then that should be possible too.

Perhaps the simplest way to make a disk image would be to boot to a command prompt from a windows install or recovery USB and use Sysinterals' Disk2Vhd to make a vhdx file. Remember to include all partitions required to boot Windows, not just the C: partition.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sy...loads/disk2vhd

VMWare will require a VMDK image rather than VHDX. There are ways to convert your image.

How to Convert VHDX to VMDK: Hyper-V to VMware

Whether all your software will run in a VM is not possible to say. Free software should have no issues, but if you have any licensed software it may detect that the hardware has changed and loose activation. You may need to re-register such software, so make sure you have all your licence keys to hand.

Windows activation is also an issue. If you have linked your digital licence to your MS account you may need to run the Activation Troubleshooter to reactivate Windows in the VM.

Quick and not dirty.

1. Create a Backup of your WIN10
2. Start your VMware and create a new Disk.
3. Recover your WIN10 backup to your new created virtual disk

Works on VMwareWorkstation and is an easy way to test your backup. If on a free Player Version ?