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Re: who uses dual boot? [was: How to start using a free OS]



On 13/11/13 11:36, Scott Ferguson wrote:
On 13/11/13 21:44, José Silva wrote:
On 13/11/13 01:46, Scott Ferguson wrote:
On 13/11/13 11:59, José Silva wrote:
On 13/11/13 00:26, Scott Ferguson wrote:
On 13/11/13 09:10, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Tue, 2013-11-12 at 21:36 +0100, Alois Mahdal wrote:
1.8GHz dual core and 4G RAM
attempting Win XP in VBox for even the most simple
tasks was a royal PITA.

Then something is fishy.

(Also one reason to keep the Win in the dual-boot manner is that
I have a valid OEM license there, which I believe cannot be
migrated to VM.)


That's incorrect - I've done (automated) many, many times successfully
with all versions of Windoof except the latest. Your biggest problems
will be support for external devices (USB/LP/Com/Firewire) and that's
determined by, correct settings, CPU support.

He probably has an OEM SLP license, married to a key in the original
machine bios, which won't work in the VM because it obviously has a
different bios that doesn't have the key.

Please re-read my post.


You're absolutely right, I hadn't read your very detailed and lengthy
post to the end. I'm sorry if I made you jump.

No apology necessary. I do the same thing frequently myself despite
trying not to. :)



I think there are ways of overcoming this, inserting the "key" in the VM
bios, but I doubt it's legal.

Actually, I've never seen a key - just the name of the OEM.





I know, I gave instructions to deal with that (for that reason).

A couple of years ago I investigated this matter as an experiment and,
although my memory is not as good as it used to be, I seem to remember
that inserting the key (string) in the VM by setextradata(), inserts it
in the DMI area which is only accepted by some machines to activate the
license, as is the case of, if I remember well, hp and dell.

But there are machines, I tested an asus, that are expecting the key
string in the upper bios page, "0xf", that can't be reached by
setextradata().


There are some tricks to that - I'd have to dig through my notes but I
vaguely recollect that happening with some EEEs I did a SOE for.


So, in these cases, either you compile VB from source or you insert it
by brute force. I did the later and it worked.

It's easier in vmware player where you can replace the whole bios by
config.

At the cost of having to use vmware.... :)

You're right, I don't use it.

By the way, I just remembered there's an alternative way to activate an oem license. I read it on a MS page, confirming what I observed. You probably already know this but it might help someone.

In fact, every pre-installed oem windows os has two cd keys; the first is for the slp license we have been discussing, which you can read in the registry and that is locked to the bios.

The other is the one on the COA label stick to the machine. This is to be used in case you loose the recovery partition on the disk; for instance if the disk breaks.

To activate this license, you install windows with a retail cd, because you usually don't get a cd with pre-installed windows, insert the COA cd key, and activate by phone. I'm sure this works on a ported vm using your method, to which the cd key is changed to the one on the COA.

The problem is that you have to reactivate if you delete the vm and they place a limit for activations. Then again, you might use your method of license backup.



Are you a lawyer? Do you have reason why the qualified legal advice I
was given is incorrect? (read the bit about "unless you have a
developers license).


No, I'm not a lawyer, are you?

No. So if you act on my advice it won't serve as grounds for mitigation.
My indemnity insurance doesn't cover legal advice!

But we had one at the company I worked for where we moved a lot of
legacy XP machines into VMs and we consulted him *before* doing it (we
passed the subsequent software audits).
MS advised us to dispose of the machines (they believe you owe them a
license even after you remove the OS as the hardware came with Windoof
pre-installed even though we also had corporate *and* developer licenses
- they wanted us to use their emulator - which would require W7, we
weren't prepared to tell them we'd only be buying a handful of W7
licences and using Linux instead of thousands of W7 installs. But that
was more a negotiating tactic for license prices rather than an exercise
in deceit.


Thank you for the insight, very useful.



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