Can VirtualBox Win10 use my Win7 license key?  

NavyLCDR said:

On Hyper-V virtual machines I've always used VHD dynamic virtual disk files.

Looks like the answer is here -

VDI is the native format of VirtualBox. Other virtualization software generally don't support VDI, but it's pretty easy to convert from VDI to another format, especially with qemu-img convert.

VHD is the native format of Microsoft Virtual PC. Windows Server 2012 introduced VHDX as the successor to VHD, but VirtualBox does not support VHDX.

What disk image should I use with VirtualBox, VDI, VMDK, VHD or HDD? - Super User

Now I have to find whether I should use static or dynamic.

Hopachi said:

Use dynamic, it only fills up the drive with files that actually exist. Works also better with many VMs that are temporary on same drive. If you'll need the extra disk space on the physical machine, use dynamic.

A static disk will reserve / use all the space defined as its size even if it's mostly empty. Empty space in VM will use real space on a static disk.

Example:
fresh empty static disk: virtual size 60GB -> uses 60GB (its real file size is 60GB)
fresh empty dynamic disk: virtual size 60GB -> uses a couple of MB depending on formatting and structure (real file size is only a couple of MB).

A dynamic disk can grow if you fill it up but it can only grow up to its maximum then it looks like a static one. You can compact a dynamic disk to free up space after you delete files in the VM. Space will be released in the host (physical system) after you compact the virtual disk.

Thanks for the very helpful details. Dynamic should work well for my needs. The compacting sounds like similar behavior to Outlook PST files.

Thanks for the tips.

Though I am stuck trying to get a virtual instance of Windows 10 installed.

I have installed Virtual Box 6.1.18
I created the Win 10 ISO file
I selected the ISO media to be associated with the optical drive of the VM and see it there
But I'm not sure how to execute the Win10 install

If I double-click on the VM, I get the following error -

The native API dll was not found (C:\Windows\system32\WinHvPlatform.dll) (VERR_NEM_NOT_AVAILABLE).
VT-x is disabled in the BIOS for all CPU modes (VERR_VMX_MSR_ALL_VMX_DISABLED).


Result Code:
E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component:
ConsoleWrap
Interface:
IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

- - - Updated - - -

lbeachmike said:

Thanks for the tips.

Though I am stuck trying to get a virtual instance of Windows 10 installed.

I have installed Virtual Box 6.1.18
I created the Win 10 ISO file
I selected the ISO media to be associated with the optical drive of the VM and see it there
But I'm not sure how to execute the Win10 install

If I double-click on the VM, I get the following error -

The native API dll was not found (C:\Windows\system32\WinHvPlatform.dll) (VERR_NEM_NOT_AVAILABLE).
VT-x is disabled in the BIOS for all CPU modes (VERR_VMX_MSR_ALL_VMX_DISABLED).


Result Code:
E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component:
ConsoleWrap
Interface:
IConsole {872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed}

I found the solution to this. I needed to enable virtualization support in my BIOS

You have to go into your bios settings and enable virtualization in the cpu settings.

I feel like I'm on an obstacle course ...

Latest issue is that Windows 10 installation fails with error: 0x8007025D - Windows cannot install required files. This happens when it is at 93% of preparing files ...

Doing some googling, but not finding what appears to be a solution so far ...

That's normally due to a bad ISO file.

NavyLCDR said:

That's normally due to a bad ISO file.

Yes - I see that. But if I extract the ISO file with WinRAR or WinISO, they have no problem extracting it. So I'm not sure what should be my next steps.

It's the install.esd file inside the ISO file. Have the Media Creation Tool make a new ISO file.