What to do with extra prosessor with Windows 8.1 (non-professional)?

Question

My desktop workstation has two quad core processors. I recently installed Windows 8.1, and I found that without the Professional version of Windows 8 you can only use one socket here:

How many physical processors does Windows 8 Support?

So I have a full quad-core CPU that is completely unused, but I don't want to buy a professional license...

So my question is: does any one know of something that I can do with this processor? Can I use it for something else while I am running Windows?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

Answer 1

Here's one example of how you can make use of both CPUs:

• Install a free bare-metal hypervisor (VMware vSphere Hypervisor, MS Hyper-V Server, or Linux running KVM for example).
• Create a VM and install your Windows 8.1.
• Create one or more other VM's, and install a free OS like Linux.
• Run more than one VM at a time.
• Do whatever you want in which ever VM(s) you'd like to put load on. :)

The hypervisor will use both CPUs to provide resources for the VMs.