Re-installing windows to a VM

Question

Just got a new Lenovo Legion and want to wipe drive and install Linux as the primary OS, and then use my current Windows 10 as a VM on Linux.

Will I need to retrive the product key or I do not need to as the digital licensing will take care of activation on the VM?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Digital licensing on the host does not apply for the activation of the VM, since the emulated hardware is very different from the host's hardware.

I have in the past virtualized Windows servers that reached end-of-life with success. This is called Physical-to-Virtual (P2V). The tool I have used was vCenter Converter, but this was years ago.

Another option might be the Hyper-V Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter.

Still another is Physical To Virtual (P2V) using VirtualBox.

For more information and tools see the following posts. Some are pretty old, but contain useful information. You will have to see which ones still work today.

• Can you use VMware to do a P2V from the same machine?
• Clone physical disk to VDI virtual disk (VirtualBox)?
• Clone current host OS to a guest virtual machine
• How to create vdi from existing (off line) partition?

Answer 2

I did exactly this.

Most computers that come with Windows pre-installed have their key attached to the back with a sticker.

I used that key for the Windows VM.

The key allows just one copy, so as long as you erase the copy on disk before creating the VM (which is what you intend to do), it's within contract.