I came across an unused product key for Windows 8 Pro back from my DreamSpark Premium days and I was thinking if I could use it to install Windows 8 Pro on a virtual machine, then upgrade it to Windows 10 Pro and link its digital license to a Microsoft Account different from the one to which the digital license of my actual physical Windows 10 Pro computer is linked. Of course this can only be possible if the hardware ID of a virtual machine is different from the hardware ID of my actual physical machine. So my question is: is it different?
You don't have to go through such a long and complicated installation journey. You can immediately install Windows 10 Pro and use any still in Windows 10 unused Win7 pro or Ultimate, Win8 or Windows 8.1 Pro activation key to activate.
That has nothing to do with the HWID! He simply asked if the HWID of both, on HDD and/or VM installed Windows is the same or different! It would be different because the virtual HW differs from the real HW.
You mean I don't have to go through the upgrade process and I can just clean install Windows 10 Pro on a virtual machine and use my unused Windows 8 Pro product key to activate it? That'd be awesome!
Thank you for answering and clearing my doubts. Can I ask one more thing? If I dual-boot a Windows 10 Pro VHD, can the other 10 Pro copy on VHD be activated with a separate key or will the MS activation servers use my digital license of my HDD-installed & activated copy of Windows 10 Pro to automatically activate that VHD boot copy the moment that VHD 10 Pro goes online and that would lead to violation of EULA?
is your key RETAIL | OEM | VOLUME . if RETAIL | OEM pl dont use it to activate another installation either on same machine as vm but if VL then give it a try .