V2P Tutorial needed!!

Hello,

Have a few "retail" Win-7 licenses that I need to upgrade to Win-10 before Microsoft yanks free upgrade.

Was looking at creating VMs with Win-7, upgrading these VMs to Win-10 and then use V2P to move these VMs to physical boxes.

Wondering if this is possible and if yes, then how to best start the process.

Would like to avoid having to associate all the VMs to my Win-10 account for a hardware change method that I've seen on this forum.

Was hoping that since these VMs do not have any applications etc. it might be easier to move them to physical units but did not see any step wise tutorial on the web. VMWare does have a documentation but was wondering if anyone has followed that and had any issues that I should keep in mind.

Thanks for your assistance.

simrick said:

I think you can do this using Sysprep.
Upgrading now is not necessary - your W7 keys will activate the W10 installs, as long as they are the same (Home/Pro).

I thought that the free upgrade expires on July 29, 2016 and after that date, even W7 Keys will need to pay for Win-10 upgrade.

Kari said:

As I have understood the OP wants to use the free upgrade offer. No V2P (Virtual to Physical) solution will work for this.
Upgrade now before 29th of this month, you can clean install using your Windows 7 key. Upgrade thereafter, you need to pay for Windows 10 license.
Kari

So, my plan to
1 - create VMs with Win-7,
2 - make backup of this template,
3 - activate Win-7
4- upgrade to Win-10
5-make a backup of this Win-10 VM
6-repeat steps to make multiple VMs

Then as needed, convert these VMs to physical machines cannot be done?

Thanks,

Kari said:

That changes the whole thing.

If your Windows 7 licenses are OEM, you can forget it. The OEM license would be tied to the hardware it is first installed and activated, in your case emulated virtual machine hardware. Totally impossible to transfer it to physical machine.

However, in case your licenses are Retail, you don't even need to install Windows 10. Install Windows 10 on a vm using Windows 7 product key (it will be accepted until 29th) and that's it. Create a system image (I recommend using Macrium) and restore the image on a physical computer when time comes.

Licenses are Retail. Assuming you meant that I don't even need to install Win-7, just install Win-10 and activate with Win-7 key. I think I might need to use the generic key the first time while installing win-10 and then enter win-7 key to activate or has this changed now?

Kari said:

To be sure Windows discards the vm hardware drivers and installs those correct to the physical hardware, I would do one extra step. My workflow would be like this:

1.) Clean install Windows 10 to a vm using Windows 7 product key

2.) When finally on desktop, run Sysprep to generalize the image (from elevated Command Prompt):

Code:

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown

3.) When vm shuts down after successful Sysprep, boot it with Macrium Rescue boot disk and create the image. Image is now generalized, in other words all hardware related information and drivers have been removed and when restored to another (physical) machine Windows will run the First Run procedure installing correct drivers

Ok, need to grab one of your tutorials to image using Macrium. Is there one that you think is more suited for my situation?

Kari said:

You will most probably need to use phone activation when image is restored to a physical machine, Windows activation telling you "This product key is used on another computer". Automated activation call asks you on how many computers this key is used, you answer one and follow the instructions to activate, to transfer the license.

Notice that when a Windows 7 product key is used to activate Windows 10, you cannot reuse it in Windows 7 on another machine.

Of course, cannot expect same key to be active on more than 1 pc at the same time. Phone activation is not an issue.

Thanks for your assistance in this.

Hi there

Simple if you have Macrium assuming VMWARE VM's. You'll need the bootable ISO (to create image from within the VM) and a bootable USB / CD copy to restore the image to your target HDD.

Macrium (pro) allows restore to different hardware. Acronis might do the same - if it does steps are similar.


1) UNINSTALL VMWARE tools from the VM

2) Boot Macrium ISO from within the VM - you can attach external HDD for target image.

3) image it with Macrium to external HDD.

4) boot macrium from external USB drive / CD

5) restore image created in step 3 to physical HDD with different hardware option
You might miss a couple of drivers but windows will find in Windows update.

Cheers
jimbo

Thank you for your continued assistance. I guess I now have more questions than before

Kari said:

You don't need any key to install. When installation asks for the key, select I don't have a product key and install normally. The do as told in this tip in one of our tutorials, the part relevant to you highlighted...

Ok, will do that. Install Win-10 on a VM and use Win-7 Key to activate. Will select 'Do not have key' initially while installing.

Kari said:

Couldn't be simpler. Sysprep as I told in my previous post to make sure image is generalized, hardware independent. Shut down vm (using the example sysprep command I gave it shuts down automatically).

So, after running command, VM shuts down and I use macrium boot usb/iso to boot from OR will system re-start and I need to take some steps to use macrium boot/iso?

Kari said:

In vm settings change boot media to Macrium boot ISO / USB / DVD, or boot media from any other third party imaging software. Boot vm, make image, copy image to safe place. Another good choice for making images is EaseUS ToDo Free, for that I have made a few videos: Solved Windows 10 instructional videos by Ten Forums members - Page 98 - Windows 10 Forums

I have free Macrium Reflect but never used to create boot iso/usb/dvd. Will search on this forum to do that.


Can I create a macrium boot iso/usb from macrium reflect running on a Win-7 PC or do I need to create this boot dvd/iso from a Win-10 PC?

Kari said:

Two things to think when creating virtual machines for this purpose:
If you create a legacy BIOS / MBR vm, the image will be legacy BIOS and can only be restored to legacy BIOS hardware. The same with UEFI /GPT
An image created from a 40 GB virtual hard disk can be restored to a 1 TB SSD or HDD, and the physical partition then expanded, but an image created from a 512 GB virtual hard disk cannot be restored to a 256 GB physical disk. In other words, make the vm's vhd a bit smaller than the smallest possible physical disk you can think of ever restoring it to.
Kari

Exellent points. Since these VMs will be transferred to newer models of physical machines, I'd assume that I need to create VMs with UEFI/GPT.


In VMWare Workstation, do I get to choose what type of VM I'm creating? Or do I need to create these VMs on a Win-10 host with UEFI/GPT?


I'll keep the size to a minimum since these VMs would only have windows installed, nothing else.