[TriLUG] Win7 & virtual machines (Windows license police)

[Pete Soper]

In exactly the same situation Windows 7 initially activated OK after a 
VM-hosted install with the license key from the laptop label (i.e. same 
key used on the "direct boot" instance of Windows). But I got unhappy 
with Mint/Mate Linux and switched to LUbuntu and redid the partitioning. 
In the process I made a mistake and ended up without the VirtualBox 
virtual disk file for the W7 instance and had to do another from-scratch 
install. Again the activation went OK, but after the first couple 
hundred patches Windows got unhappy and insisted on another activation 
and this time it rejected the key and forced me to go through a truly 
cruel telephone activation you'd have to experience to believe. But in 
the course of this the phone robot said something close to:

    "Are you using this copy of Windows on a single computer?"

And as somebody else wrote, in this use case only one instance is 
running at a time. Surely only Larry Ellison would insist on a separate 
license for the VM-hosted instance?

By the way, it is painful, but possible to get iso files of the official 
W7 install DVD from Microsoft. The trick is determining which of the 
many (hundreds? THOUSANDS?) of different builds that are lumped together 
under a single label like "W7 Professional with SP1". I read a lot of 
forum msgs and just picked one (build 7601) and it seems to be working OK.

-Pete

On 02/06/2014 08:50 AM, M. R. wrote:
> I have Win7 and Ubuntu dual booting.
>
> I would like to have Win7 as a virtual machine within Ubuntu.
>
> Do I need to buy a separate Win7 (Professional) for each VM I want to 
> have it as a guest?
>
> Can I install it from the software partition (backup/source, not the 
> active "C:\" drive) that comes on the laptop in question?
>
> Thanks.