February 3, 201610 yr I am new to VM but, managed to enable the VM feature in VM Manager. I think I set up the Windows-based VM in UnRAID correctly so far and put the drivers in my Share. I have a Windows 8 Installation CD that I installed on a local harddrive (not UnRAID server) 4 or 5 months ago and activated and registered it. I have not installed any additional applications in Windows 8. Now I would like to install the Windows 8 on the UnRAID VM instead. Do I need to make an ISO of the Windows 8 Installation CD? If so, whats the best way to do that?
February 3, 201610 yr Amaturer user myself, depends whether you have activaded windows 8 or not. Assuming you have I would think you need to follow the procedure in the manual for converting a physical drive to a virtual drive. Good luck, post your progress or any additional questions you may have V/R
February 3, 201610 yr Windows will see a VM as new hardware so it will need activation regardless. Starting from the original Windows installation CD is most likely to work.
February 4, 201610 yr Author Windows will see a VM as new hardware so it will need activation regardless. Starting from the original Windows installation CD is most likely to work. Do I need to convert the Installation CD into an ISO image or can I install from the CD drive on my local PC?
February 4, 201610 yr You can install from either the DVD or an ISO image of it. HOWEVER ... since you've already installed and activated the system with your disk, you can't use the same key for another installation. You'll need another Windows license to do the install with.
February 4, 201610 yr Author You can install from either the DVD or an ISO image of it. HOWEVER ... since you've already installed and activated the system with your disk, you can't use the same key for another installation. You'll need another Windows license to do the install with. Seems like I had a case in the past where my harddrive failed and I was able to re-install the OS on the new harddrive and then re-activate it. How do I install the OS on my UnRAID server from my local DVD drive? If it fails registration then, I guess I will buy another license.
February 4, 201610 yr You can install from either the DVD or an ISO image of it. HOWEVER ... since you've already installed and activated the system with your disk, you can't use the same key for another installation. You'll need another Windows license to do the install with. Seems like I had a case in the past where my harddrive failed and I was able to re-install the OS on the new harddrive and then re-activate it. How do I install the OS on my UnRAID server from my local DVD drive? If it fails registration then, I guess I will buy another license. If you simply replace a hard drive and reinstall on the same hardware there won't be any issue with activation, since the hash will be close enough to meet the criteria for activation. But installing on completely different hardware (e.g. the "virtual hardware" for a VM) is a different story.
February 4, 201610 yr The installation will fail to activate as the key has previously been used, but if you follow the on-screen instructions for contacting Microsoft by telephone and getting it activated you should be fine. This is just the same as would happen if you had a PC fail and had to install on another machine. It is such a frequent occurrence that the Microsoft end is an automated voice-response system and will normally not even get a human involved. I assume the Microsoft end just checks that this key is not being frequently used to combat piracy.
February 4, 201610 yr The installation will fail to activate as the key has previously been used, but if you follow the on-screen instructions for contacting Microsoft by telephone and getting it activated you should be fine. This is just the same as would happen if you had a PC fail and had to install on another machine. It is such a frequent occurrence that the Microsoft end is an automated voice-response system and will normally not even get a human involved. I assume the Microsoft end just checks that this key is not being frequently used to combat piracy. It also depends on the type of key. If it's an OEM key (not transferable) it won't activate on another system; if it's a retail key, it will generally activate fine on another system, although a check is done to guard against a pattern of misuse [i.e. trying to activate it on a lot of different systems]. As I noted earlier, activating again on the SAME system can be done as often as you want.
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