TL;DR : do you know a way to activate windows 7 Embedded ? So I like testing with vm (vmware) and trying many windows to find the fastest/compact one with enough feature (so, not windows XP ...) I tried Windows 7 Embedded, its footprint once configured is only 5GB (usually a Windows 7 x64 Pro is 18GB on a VM) [basically a normal windows has too many stuff for compatibility, but it's not that important in a VM] everything worked fine, even photoshop. but I can't find a way to activate it : no loader work, same with kms. do you guys know a way ? [maybe the iso I downloaded from microsoft website can't be activated ? but I don't have a realiable source for an activable iso and its checksum] side note : I tried Windows 8.1 Embedded too, seems to work and activated, but it has a 9GB footprint. (and I don't like metro/MUI xD) also I don't care about security issues, so please don't bother me with that; I know what I'm doing. --- ISO Name : Windows Embedded Standard 7 SP1 64bit IBW Size : 3.4GB SHA-1 : 6F84F7A0E2315730A8F86750FC5959AEFF2AA8A8 SHA256 : A371D165C6F6E6012BA6F01942ABB252E613FAD454557FC32E48F0130E0934EC --- for windows 8 embedded the checksum are : SHA-1 : 6C54418ECFBD5174C616193179EEADE4B9C972C5 SHA256 : A0401092AF840CB5AA1F63ECF8ABA0B175B9ED44B8D0FF815F38DD26C4D556E7
ok, I didn't expect that to work. (it didn't) I should have been more precise, I have already installed the image and activation isn't working; but I'm going to try doing the image again I guess; and try what they say in your link. thx