Clean install of W10 not possible in Virtual Machine.

Kari said:

The thread title is invalid and gives false information. Windows 10 can and will be activated exactly the same way and following same rules, regardless if we are talking about virtual machines or real physical computers.

Kari

I think I finally got what you meant.


On a physical Machine, you can upgrade windows 7 to windows 10 on a physical machine and it will activate. You can wipe the hard drive and do a clean install of 10 on a physical machine skipping entering the keys and physical machine will activate.

Instead of creating a new virtual machine, you wipe the virtual hard drive, then do a clean install of windows 10 and the virtual machine should activate. If you create a new virtual machine it considered a new computer even though it has all the same emulated hardware.

FWIW and AFAIK it is not possible to do a clean install of W10 on a vm. Only an upgrade. I installed a retail 8.1 on a vm (VMware workstation v12 Pro) - upgrading was still not possible... meaning using the tasbar 'windows-upgrade' button. Windows stating that it will not upgrade (version is not suitable or something). The workaround is to use media creation tool and run the setup from there.
With me it resulted in an activated W10 version. Obviously it is recommended to make snapshots of the 1st vm, as after a year 'upgrding ' isn't possible anymore.

Thank you!
Frankly, I wasn't aware of that.

VMware Workstation has assigned 2GB RAM by itself - this I did not change manually.

All the other items, assume you mean the below?

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BTW, I wonder what would be happening IF I were to change the working directory
(D:\Virtual Machines\Windows 8 x64) to a new one, say:
D:\Virtual Machines\Windows 10 x64

would then the entire contents be moved from 8 x64 to 10 x64.
I hesitate to just 'give it a try' fearing I would be messing up things.

Anyway, thanks for your tips!

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Thanks. My experience with vmware is that the more memory you assign, the slower it gets. I have 32GB DDR4 RAM (2400) on X99 Asus and Intel i5820 and using two Samsung Pro 850 SSD's (512/1TB), so there is sufficient 'power' . I increased the 2GB to 8GB , assuming it would get faster, but instead it got rrreally terribly slow.

Running Windows 10 x64 Pro as a host and vm is also 10 x64.

tfwul said:

Thanks. My experience with vmware is that the more memory you assign, the slower it gets. I have 32GB DDR4 RAM (2400) on X99 Asus and Intel i5820 and using two Samsung Pro 850 SSD's (512/1TB), so there is sufficient 'power' . I increased the 2GB to 8GB , assuming it would get faster, but instead it got rrreally terribly slow.

Running Windows 10 x64 Pro as a host and vm is also 10 x64.

The most likely reason for this is that VMWare is caching memory to disk. The fastest way is for the assigned memory to be only in RAM. To do this edit you .vmx file and add (or if already exist change) the following line.

mainmem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

It will then not write the whole contents of your memory to the .vmem file in the VM directory. Unfortunately this only works in Workstation, not in Player which always creates the memory swap file.

VMware Continuum - Tuning guide - setup the host for expected usage ...
Performance Tweaks VMware Workstation 10 — Virtualization Howto

Hi there

in addition to Kari's post :

To get W10 activation as a VM you need to do the following

1) Install W7 / W8 / W8.1 AS A VIRTUAL MACHINE , install updates and activate it.

2) Now do an UPGRADE to W10 ON YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE. This VM will be activated. DO NOT ENTER A PRODUCT KEY.

3) Now a CLEAN install (as a VM) will work just fine - and it will be activated.

I've performed this process using a Windows HOST as well as a LINUX HOST. Exactly the same considerations apply when using a VM as using a REAL machine.

Can't see what the problem is.

A VM needs a licence just the same as a REAL machine. I was using old TechNet serials for W7 / W8.1 to create the VM and then do the updates.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

Hi there

in addition to Kari's post :

To get W10 activation as a VM you need to do the following

1) Install W7 / W8 / W8.1 AS A VIRTUAL MACHINE , install updates and activate it.

2) Now do an UPGRADE to W10 ON YOUR VIRTUAL MACHINE. This VM will be activated. DO NOT ENTER A PRODUCT KEY.

3) Now a CLEAN install (as a VM) will work just fine - and it will be activated.

I've performed this process using a Windows HOST as well as a LINUX HOST. Exactly the same considerations apply when using a VM as using a REAL machine.

Can't see what the problem is.

A VM needs a licence just the same as a REAL machine. I was using old TechNet serials for W7 / W8.1 to create the VM and then do the updates.

Cheers
jimbo

Step 3 didn't work for me when I did those exact steps. Each time a new vm is created it is consider a new machine even though it has all the same hardware. When I did a clean install of 10. Windows 10 did not activate for me. I did try to reinstall windows 7 in a VM. It said key was blocked, that was because either I used it one to many time or windows 10 upgrade ate it don't know which. However, Noel said a phone call would fix the activation with windows 7 when I am ready to try it again and just explain what you did to Microsoft.