Win Sandbox is enterprise and not activated

Then why mine shows as activated?

0x0047 said:

Then why mine shows as activated?

Very good question.. Mine also shows as not activated either.. but it shows Windows Enterprise, which is not what I have.

cereberus said:

Weird.

So it's supposed to not be activated? - - Not that it really matters in the end, but don't remember ever seen Sandboxes or VMs with unactivated Operating Systems.

Kari said:

Windows Sandbox is meant to be used for testing various stuff in an isolated environment. Every time it is closed or shut down, all changes are discarded, and every time it is launched, it's like first boot of a clean installed Windows 10.

For its purpose, it would be completely unnecessary to activate it. Only differences between an activated Windows 10 and not activated Windows 10 are that you cannot personalise it (theme, colours etc.), and that after some time being not activated, a watermark "Activate now" is shown on desktop. Everything else works just fine also without activation.

Because Sandbox is a totally different machine than its host, with unique GUID and machine ID, it couldn't be activated using the host's digital licence. In this sense it's the same than a virtual machine; virtual machine with unique GUID and machine ID will not be activated just because the host is activated.

This really is profoundly irrelevant, there is absolutely no reason for Windows Sandbox to be activated. Everything it has to offer is available in its not activated state for its short life span (from a few minutes to a few hours).

Kari

@Kari

I usually agree with you but on this one I think sandbox needs to be able to do anything an activated version of Windows can do -- you might want to see what different personalisation looks like, test different languages, install stuff that does require a boot / uninstall stuff that also requires a boot. A sandbox should also have some level of persistency -- what about long running tests say of remote databases -- you might wish to pause mid session and then resume a few days later -- especially if the remote database is due to have some planned outages due to maintenance etc -- you don't want to start your long runnng test again from scratch.

What about testing new hardware - this will often require drivers that could cause the main machine to fail -- installing these invariably requires a reboot too.

I know you can "essentially simulate" a checkpoint by taking a complete system backup image so you can then restore to continue the sandbox session -but it still doesn't get over the re-boot problem either.

There's also no reason IMO why the sandbox couldn't be configured to reside on a different HDD or even an external one - or SSD of course.

For running with real hardware you need something like a Sandbox as a VM isn't always a true testbed.

Cheers
jimbo