free Windows 11 virtual machines

Discussion in 'Windows 11' started by eemuler, May 25, 2023.

  1. eemuler

    eemuler MDL Senior Member

    Jul 31, 2015
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    #1 eemuler, May 25, 2023
    Last edited: May 25, 2023
  2. Dolmatov

    Dolmatov MDL Addicted

    Aug 16, 2017
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    #2 Dolmatov, May 25, 2023
    Stop hovering to collapse... Click to collapse... Hover to expand... Click to expand...
  3. eemuler

    eemuler MDL Senior Member

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    #3 eemuler, May 25, 2023 (OP)
    Ah! If only we knew of a website that has ways to convert trial versions.
     
  4. acer-5100

    acer-5100 MDL Guru

    Dec 8, 2018
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    #4 acer-5100, May 25, 2023
    It's called my digital life, I think :D
     
  5. JLBENEDICT

    JLBENEDICT MDL Junior Member

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    #5 JLBENEDICT, Jun 4, 2023
    Misleading title (but we know nothing is "free" from MS) :clap3:

    Per the MS source -

    The evaluation virtual machine includes:
    • Windows 11 Enterprise (Evaluation)
    • Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition with UWP, .NET Desktop, Azure, and Windows App SDK for C# workloads enabled
    • Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 enabled with Ubuntu installed
    • Windows Terminal installed
    • Developer mode enabled
     
  6. Bezalel

    Bezalel MDL Member

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    #6 Bezalel, Jun 8, 2023
    Is there anything in the evaluation image that can’t be acquired separately? I’d rather have a script that installs everything separately than a binary blob.
     
  7. eemuler

    eemuler MDL Senior Member

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    #7 eemuler, Jun 8, 2023 (OP)
    No. However, setting up Azure properly from scratch seems to be a bit of a pain and MS recommends downloading one of the pre built images, so you will probably be going for at least one binary blob regardless. I get your preference for VS though - I too only like to install the features I think I'll need, whereas this image seems to have everything including the kitchen sink. 24 GB - whew!
     
  8. acer-5100

    acer-5100 MDL Guru

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    #8 acer-5100, Jun 8, 2023

    Calling a Virtual HD image a "binary blob" is a nonsense.

    First because you can easily check what's inside.

    Second because, given most of MS SW is not open source, what's inside the image is "by design" a bunch of "binary blobs", no matter if you install it, or if MS did it for you.