From theoven site: "As many of you know MS is requiring you to UPGRADE a qualifying OS (Win7 or Win8.1) in order to activate Windows 10.." An upgrade is required only if you wish to get a free Digital Entitlement license. But once you do that, you can wipe the drive and reinstall Windows 10 to get a "clean" activated installation on that computer if you wish since 10 uses HWID for activation. And you still haven't spent a thing. Well, I guess you spent the value of a DVD if you created the installation media on DVD by using the Media Creation Tool. You're not required to upgrade to get a fully activated Windows 10. You could just go buy a retail version ... many people do I'd imagine. If there ever was a case of making a mountain out of a mole hill, Windows 10 Digital Entitlement and HWID is it. This process is just not that complicated.
I get that. But in the interest of finding a more EFFICIENT and REPEATABLE workflow.. / process / path way.. A) - Let's say I DISM APPLY a Win 10 Image to VHD - This is equivalent to a SYSPREPPED Common Image. - Now I deploy/ copy this VHD to every machine in person or via network. So far the VHD is Common & same B) - Now I "NATIVE BOOT" this VHD on each machine, from which point on the VHD becomes unique with SID - with its unique HWID; PS: I'm assuming Win 10 sees the VHD has a physical HDD, so each HWID is driven off other items in the machine C) - Get the Entitlement via the "Native Booted" VHD Win 10 - Save entitlements/ let MS save it on their servers D) - Delete all Win 10 VHDs on all machines until such time when we wish to go from Win 7/8 to Win 10 using the PREVIOUSLY OBTAINED entitlements.
VHD would only be one point out of 10 that would need to be the exact same for activation to remain. It calculates other things such as memory amount, MAC addresses, motherboard serial, graphics card, etc. There's no situation that I'm aware of where you could have the same activation on different machines short of this new 14371 build activation tying to your MS account Why don't you install win7 and loader and upgrade on those machines before the upgrade process runs out and quit fiddling around with stuff that doesn't work?
I do not want the same activation on different machines at all. I was looking for a way where OEM Dell machines (With Win 7 & 8) can be made to get Entitled via shortest/ fastest path without actually upgrading to Win 10 for now. A path that was suggested on Spiceworks was this: Attach an SSD having fresh Win 10, activating, activate Win 10, remove SSD, image SSD with fresh Win 10.. repeat. I was wondering if doing it with a VHD on the SSD would be easier/ faster; as we dont have to image the Physical partition on SSD, just copy the "fresh" VHD and repeat.
The native VHD installation will be activated exactly like a real one. And if you move the VHD on different digital entitled machines it will activate. What you can't do is to move the digital entitlement with the VHD
Never though of doing that T-S. Gonna have to try on the next KMS activated Win 8.* homebuilt I get in
If you have the the KMS service you can move your VHD freely between any machine. It will activate on the first boot. Obviusly the system will boot reliably only on machines using the standard AHCI and or IDE controllers (which are the vast majority nowadays). On RAID setups or older proprietary SATA/IDE controllers you will get the usual unaccessible boot device.
It depends. If you start from a legit w7, why not? If you start with a w7 activated with a loader, obviously it isn't. At least formally. But clearly if MS still allows this it's because they are OK with that
Oh I get it. You want to get the digital entitlement on MS's servers. Hmm yah I'd go the gatherosstate and try to load VHD
So there's 2 pathways here: 1. Where the Entitlement is also registered as a Legit Signup from Pre July 29 for machines that are legitimately Eligible. > this is for the OEMs 2. Where the license is not as perfect as option 1. e.g. OEM m/c with XP/ Vista or Non OEM m/c with Win 7 etc? How would these ideas apply to both scenarios?
The OEM Dell machines that shipped with Win8/8.1 would have a MSDM table. Just dump the Win10 image with the default manufacturers OA3 key & they will all activate. For the win7 boxes, I'd go with Bat.1 & just generate the Genuine Ticket. Dump the Win10 image with Retail key & then insert Ticket...
By now everybody should know I'm not the brightest light on the Christmas tree So I have no problem admitting that I've been doing this the hard way by moving a physical drive from PC to PC. Using the Genuine ticket with VHDs definitely seems like the easiest and definitely the fastest way.
I know. Is not straightforward to think that MS, every 10000 pointless innovations, introduces something of useful, with native VHDs they did. In our case they just cloned a concept used in Linux for decades, but cloned or not, it's a good idea.
I'm not in the habit of using the native VHD but it's something I'm planning on doing a lot more. BigReds has been pushing Me to do it for Years. I'd been doing so much testing on such really dangerous stuff that I've been using a cloned VMWare image inside of a cloned "Sacrificial Goat" OS copy isolated from everything else I Quit "Playing with Fire" so