Hey everyone,

I am trying to set up a VM on my Linux Mint pc for Windows 11. I already have the pc dual boot linux and Windows. My goal is to set up a Windows 11 VM and then delete Windows partition from my pc. I don’t want to dual boot into windows anymore, but I need it for a few applications.

Is there a way to get the key I already bought and use it for the VM I am going to set up?

Side note, what VM software do you recommend? VirtualBox seems popular, but would like some advice.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    9·
    3 hours ago

    I would avoid VirtualBox because it’s from Oracle, but that’s me. KVM is close to the metal (it’s in the name: Kernel-based Virtual Machine). Takes a bit more setup (depending on your familiarity with things). I’d go there.

  • Cris16228@lemmy.today
    23·
    4 hours ago
    1. Open PowerShell (Not CMD). To do that, right-click on the Windows start menu and select PowerShell or Terminal.
      1. Copy and paste the code below and press enter
    irm https://get.activated.win/ | iex
    1. You will see the activation options. Choose [1] HWID for Windows activation. Choose [2] Ohook for Office activation.
    2. That’s all

    https://massgrave.dev/

    Side note, what VM software do you recommend? VirtualBox seems popular, but would like some advice.

    No idea, I get very bad performances

  • dbkblk@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 hours ago

    Use virt-manager (with KVM). Learn how to install guest tools, then enjoy the performance!

    Activate it as shown in the comments!

  • richardisaguy@lemmy.world
    3·
    2 hours ago

    use virt manager if you don’t want to mess around with settings; bare qemu-system-* if you have a bunch of patience

  • CaptainBasculin@lemmy.bascul.inEnglish
    8·
    4 hours ago

    You can simply use the same key to activate your VM. You can get your license key by typing this to command line

    wmic path softwareLicensingService get OA3xOriginalProductKey

    Retail keys are meant to be transferable across multiple computers, and even OEM keys are bound to the computer’s motherboard. However if there’s any problem with activating the VM feel free to use the irm https://get.activated.win/ | iex trick, as even software audits done to corporations just take the billed license count and the PC count that uses Windows as a reference, and don’t really care about how you activated Windows.

    If you need GPU Passthrough, use VMWare or QEMU. If you don’t, any virtualisation software should do the trick.

    • Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      3 hours ago

      Thanks so much! My use case is I just want to be able to run Studio One from the VM for music production. I don’t think I need much GPU power for that

      • breakingcups@lemmy.world
        4·
        2 hours ago

        Be aware that hardware access from a virtual machine(for an audio interface, for example) can be jittery or slow (latency), which might make it unusable for your purposes or not. You’ll have to find out.

  • Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.worldOP
    1·
    2 hours ago

    One more thing. I needed to enable SVM Mode for virtualization for my AMD CPU, but now my system won’t POST. Any ideas?

  • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    4 hours ago

    if your windows is an oem license that came with the laptop; then it’s tied to the hardware and they probably won’t let you re-use it for your vm; but i remember seeing some claims online that they’ve figure out ways around it.

  • dinckel@lemmy.world
    2·
    3 hours ago

    You can keep your existing partition, and just mount the disk in a libvirt/qemu on kvm setup. Here is a good place to start

      • dinckel@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 hours ago

        If you know how to use VB, using Virtmanager wouldn’t be too different. You’ll have to find how these are packaged for your distribution, but the instructions for everything else on the wiki will be helpful regardless of the distro