Windows 10 key in VM

[VGER]

Hello,

 

I'm running a PC that came with Windows 10 installed. The installation was fully activated and valid.

 

I have since reinstalled this PC with Proxmox, overwriting the Windows partition. Now I would like to have Windows running in a virtual machine on this host, but Windows can't activate. I don't have a key, it was using "BIOS activation".

 

My mistake was that although I did start up the preinstalled Windows once and connected it to a Microsoft account (to backup the activation), I failed to update Windows first. And the non-updated Windows version didn't do the activation backup to the MS cloud yet.

 

I do have a disk image of the Windows partition. The obvious solution would be to restore this image, update Windows, perform the activation backup to the MS account, then reverse everything. But I don't want to do all that.

 

Does anyone know of a shorter way? Can I somehow retrieve the files required from the backup of the Windows partition?

 

Regards

[aDoomGuy]

If your Windows licence is OEM then you can't move it to another PC (I bet Windows would see the VM as a whole new system) as far as I know. A shorter way would be to buy a licence or just ignore the watermark.

[C2dan88]

3 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

(I bet Windows would see the VM as a whole new system)

Yes a VM is seen as a completely different computer.

OEM licensees are intended for single use only and are usually non transferable. If your intent is to only use Windows in a vm then you could try contacting MS support and see if they will issue a new license (don't mention your intention of running in a vm )

 

[VGER]

No, that's not the problem: You can transfer such a license, all you need to do is backup the license to the Microsoft account, then select it on the new device. You'll get a menu choice "I have changed hardware", confirm, done.

 

But the license needs to be in your MS account for this to work. That's my problem - mine isn't.

 

Regards