Windows 10 Auto-Activation on Virtual Machines

virtual machinewindows 10

The Windows 10 auto-activation system is quite nice: you no longer need to type in serial numbers to re-install the OS on the same machine – the machine's identity is used to activate it.

When doing a free upgrade you don't even get a Windows 10 serial number – your activation is simply linked to the machine's identity that you are upgrading.

How does this work on a virtual machine (not specifically through Microsoft's special VM server with its own activation system, but any, like VirtualBox)? These machines can be made identical everywhere. I guess VirtualBox (and presumably others) create a random MAC address for each new machine, but they also give you the ability to change it easily. Everything else is likely to be nearly identical in different VMs. Could someone just share the MAC address and get a Windows 10 VM that is activated?

Or maybe, since Windows knows it is a VM, will it require a license key? In this case, will a free upgrade not work?

[I will be updating my Windows 8.1 VirtualBox VM to Windows 10 and wondering how this will work]

Best Answer

I think the Windows 10 auto-activation system has the capabilities to use multiples sources for verify the machine's identity :

The first may be the SMBIOS UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier), on VMware, the documentation says that each virtual machine has a universal unique identifier (UUID). The UUID is generated when you initially power on the virtual machine. and each UUID is stored in the SMBIOS system information descriptor

More informations can be found here : https://pubs.vmware.com/workstation-9/index.jsp#com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-533B2C4F-7BD5-41EB-8392-2B9FE687AE50.html

The second may be eventually the volume serial number of C: drive (Disk Or C: partition GUID for GPT), and the last can be the first network card's MAC adress

--- Sources ---

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/101892-what-is-a-host-id-or-machine-id-how-do-i-find-my-host-id-machine-id-in-order-to-activate-or-get

https://software.intel.com/en-us/Uniqueness-of-UUID

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_serial_number

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

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