Windows 10 Insider Preview is not activated - does it matter?

"If i remember correctly, you can't receive new insider previews if your current installed build is not activated."

That's what surprised me. I received Insider Build Preview even though 1151 was not activated!

I am a little . When I was using windows 10 insider build or not, I never could get windows 10 to activate in a VM. Don't know why but it didn't. I thought it was because I activated windows 7 to much in the VM, that was not the case. When I clean installed windows 10 on hard drive not a Virtual Machine, I changed the windows 10 key to a windows 7 retail version and it activated without issue.

Interesting. I wonder if there is a difference in the virtualization method - i.e VMwae and VirtualBox vs Hyper-V/

martyfelker said:

Interesting. I wonder if there is a difference in the virtualization method - i.e VMwae and VirtualBox vs Hyper-V/

No there isn't (in terms of activation). In all cases the hypervisor (VMWare or VirtualBox or Hyper-V) presents the OS with a description of its underlying hardware including a number that makes it unique. This is passed on to the MS activation servers which either activate it or (if you have made a new VM) doesn't.

All are the same. If you re-install in the same VM it activates. If you make a new VM it doesn't.

If you change the host CPU or you will (possibly) have the same issues as if you had done it on a real machine as generally the CPU details are passed direct to the VM.

However if you activated Windows on a VM you must have already bought a retail license so you can just phone them up and move your activation.

I often run the same VM however on different hosts under both VMWare and VBox without having to re-activate.

Hi there

The only way I could get a VM activated was to "Virtualise" the active insider preview with VMware standalone converter (create a VM from the running physical machine). Note you have to customize the target VM before running - especially if you need to change target HDD sizes or alter the number of NIC's generated etc etc.

Then it activates without a problem -- both on Windows and Linux hosts.

Fore some reason creating a VM directly won't activate. The P2V method (physical to Virtual) via VMware converter does the trick. The converter tool is free.

Cheers
jimbo