This is almost certainly the case. I suppose it is conceivable they decide to merge Skippy and Fast as the RTM but this seems highly unlikely.
Non presence of a watermark or expiry date has no significance. During run in to RS2, we had a few builds without watermark etc, but never any explanation as to why - I can only assume poor QA checking.
Just a reminder from the 16288 release notes:
On Build 16288, you will notice that the watermark at the lower right-hand corner of the desktop has disappeared. You will also see that the OS now reports as “Version 1709” which is the official version number for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update release. However, this is NOT the final build as we’re not done yet. We’re just now beginning the phase of checking in final code to prepare for the final release. So we will have more builds to release to Windows Insiders between now and then. And the desktop watermark may re-appear in these builds.
I've just made my first foray into virtual machines, following Kari's tute (thanks, Kari)
I installed build 16288 on the VM from an ISO I had made, used the registry hack, and successfully updated to 16362. However, the installation is not activated. I'm aware that a virtual machine needs it own product key for a released version of Windows, but not so sure about Insider Previews. I'm dual booting Release and 16288 on this system and after having to re-install (due to a crash which destroyed the 2 system SSDs) the release version was activated in a chat session, and it is showing that I have a digital license. I installed Insider later, and that has picked up the digital license. I assumed that the skip ahead version I have on the VM would also pick up the DL, but no, not yet anyway. I am not motivated enough to purchase a genuine copy of W10 just to run an evaluation install on a VM. I haven't yet tried the 'phone in' method, will try that tomorrow if activation does not occur. Any other suggestions?
A virtual machine running on any host is its own entity, independent machine like any other physical or virtual machine on your network with its own unique hardware ID, the base for a Windows 10 digital license. It has nothing to do with Windows running on your host and its license. An Insider Preview build of Windows 10 will not be activated without a product key when clean installed on a new PC that has never had a licensed and activated version of Windows 10 installed before, the same naturally also applies to a virtual machine.
Expecting Windows 10 Insider Preview on a virtual machine being automatically activated based on host machine's digital license is the same than expecting Insider Preview on a desktop PC being activated because you already have digital license on your laptop. It will not happen, has never happened.
Short:
- Insider Preview build needs a license (product key) if no digital license exists for that machine, exactly as official releases. It simply is not true that Insider Preview does not need a license.
- Virtual machine, its hardware ID and digital license have nothing to do with your host and its hardware ID and digital license.
- Therefore, based on 1 & 2 above, a virtual machine needs its own license to be activated, its own product key. This applies to all versions of Windows 10, pre-release and official release.
More about Windows 10 hardware IDs on an earlier post of mine in another thread.
Kari
The myth that Insider versions do not need a licence is partly true inasmuch as those who participated in the original Technical Preview Programme could continue to use it activated even if they never had an original qualifying licence. However, once Windows 10 was formally released, new entrants to the Insider Programme were required to have an original qualifying licence (or a new 10 licence).
This build is becoming radically weird as I work with it. I believe I will reset it and give it another shot.
Why?
Although some of my Hyper-V virtual machines are activated, I also have several which are not activated, oldest of them at the moment from beginning of this year. I use these not activated virtual machines for various test purposes as well as for instance to get Insider build upgrades to make an ISO for different editions and language versions of Windows 10 as told in this tutorial: Use Hyper-V virtual machine to get Windows 10 Insider ISO Windows 10 Virtualization Tutorials
Whenever I need to / want to, I can just reinstall the specific edition and language version for that VM and start from scratch.
If you decide to get a VM activated, then it is important to remember that same rules about digital license apply than applies to physical machines. This means that you should thereafter never delete the virtual machine; you can clean install on that same VM as often as you want to and get Windows automatically activated with digital license based on that virtual machine's unique hardware ID. If you then create a new VM, it's again a new machine with unique ID requiring another license.
You can even delete the VM's virtual hard disk, create a new VHD and clean install on it in case you want to switch to a different size disk or simply want to start from scratch, or add additional virtual hard disks and install the same edition on a dual boot scenario. As hard disk information is not included in Windows 10 Hardware ID 3 which is used for digital license validation, the edition of Windows 10 which has digital license for that virtual machine will always be automatically activated, be it single or multiboot scenario.
In case you need to clean install on host, you just need to remember to export your virtual machines first to an external storage, then after host clean install is done, import them back.
The above about activating a virtual machine applies of course not only to Hyper-V but to all virtualization platforms like VMware, VirtualBox, Parallels and so on.
To get digital licensing working, Microsoft has been forced to change their earlier "license is valid for one installation on one PC" policy, although this is still not changed in official EULA. A Windows 10 PC does no longer accept multiple product keys for the same edition, if your original W10 is digitally licensed and you install a second copy of the same edition for dual boot using another product key, the key will also be changed for the first instance. Only one product key and digital license for a specific edition will be accepted.
A single digital license covers every instance of same edition on same machine. As soon as your PC has a digital license for a specific edition you can install the same edition in a multiboot scenario as many times as you want to. If you want 10 copies of Windows 10 PRO running side by side on one PC setting each of them up with different settings and software for whatever purpose, they all will be digitally licensed based on that machines hardware ID. For instance, I have a second copy of W10 PRO installed on dual boot on this laptop, with minimal start-up items, services and software to leave as much resources as possible to resource intensive video editing and encoding. In doing this I can save a considerable amount of time (and nerves!) when working with videos.
Notice that validity of a digital license has nothing to do with a Microsoft account. A digital license although it can be assigned to a Microsoft account is not tied to that account nor based on it. Assigning a digital license to a Microsoft account is mostly only for license transfer and activation troubleshooting purposes, but even computers with no Microsoft accounts will be digitally licensed. A Microsoft account just adds an additional security layer for the license in case something happens or the license needs to be transferred to another PC:
On a multiboot system with several instances of same edition of W10, each of these can be set up with different Microsoft, local, Azure AD or domain account. However, if one of additional instances on your multiboot system will be set up with a Microsoft account, the digital license of that PC will be transferred to new Microsoft account and removed from the list of devices on the previous Microsoft account. Therefore, when using the same Microsoft account for each install, if the computer name is different for each Windows setup on your multiboot system, this might theoretically cause account verification and activation issues which is why I recommend changing the computer name at boot for each additional instance when installing, using the original computer name (name of first activated instance) for each additional install. See this post for changing PC name while installing before setting up the initial user: Tips and tricks - You saw it first on TenForums! Solved - Windows 10 Forums
Kari
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