Windows – run virtual windows with the OEM license

licensevirtualboxwindows 10

I'm currently running linux with windows dualboot.

I've installed windows 10 successfully with my OEM Windows 7 Pro license that came together with my dell XPS, this was possible due to microsoft upgrade program a long time ago.

This way, I can use my linux O.S. and sometimes I can reboot my computer and start windows 10, which is successfully activated with my Windows 7 Pro OEM key.

My question is, can I install a Windows 10 VM with VirtualBox in my linux environment, and during windows install use the same Windows 7 Pro OEM key? Is it legal?

Best Answer

Like other answers have mentioned, it is allowed by the license as long as you only use one instance.

As to how to do it in practice, you need to copy the ACPI tables to the virtual machine. The relevant tables are, depending on how new your machine is, MSDM and SLIC. You can copy them as follows:

  1. ls /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/ to see what tables your system has. Older systems have only MSDM, newer ones have both.

  2. Copy the tables to a single file: sudo cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/SLIC > custom_acpi

  3. Set a VirtualBox attribute on the machine: VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 10" "VBoxInternal/Devices/acpi/0/Config/CustomTable" /home/..../custom_acpi where the last argument is the full path to custom_acpi file created in previous step.

  4. You can see the product key with strings custom_acpi, but Windows 10 may refuse it as it is an OEM key. However if you continue the installation (select "I'm reinstalling Windows"), it will automatically activate after the installation is complete.

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