Convert to VHD and Windows Licensing?
Acronis claims that you can take a backup of your windows system and convert the backup to a VHD file and then run your system on a virtual machine.
The question I have is what happens to Windows in terms of its license if you have your current system running and then boot up a second copy of your current system but within a VM? Has anyone tested converting a backup to a VHD and then booting it up? Seems like Windows would flag it as having a hardware change and would require it to be "activated" for it to run for any amount of time.
I don't have 2018 yet but am curious what people have ran into when trying this.
MNBobcat, the advice from @Derpy is correct - Acronis provides the ability to convert a Windows installation to VHD or VHDX but Windows itself will enforce licensing and activation requirements.
Users are responsible for complying with Microsoft licensing and activation.
Correct Steve, the conversion capability is solely for use to determine the validity of a backup file. If the converted file can be started in a VM then this indicates that the source .tib file would boot when restored to a physical disk as well.
Just curious... is it possible to convert a Windows 10 OEM license to a stand alone license?
this means now the VHDX will boot up Ian, in contradiction to the beta? That would be great news.
As for the licensing:
Windows Hyper-V is only available in Windows 10 pro or Windows 8.1 pro, or enterprise SKUs.
If you are running a Windows 10 pro, no matter if it is OEM or anything else you have to license any VMs hosted.
There is one exception: In Windows 2016 Server Standard you may run 2 machines with Windows for free, if you use Win 2016 / 2012 (R2) datacenter all virtual Windows machines (no matter if this is vmware or hyper-v, or citrix xenserver) are licensed.
Using the upgrade path of Windows 7/8.0/8.1 to 10 is eligble. I recommend to use a MS account.
MS has changed the game again. If you have a digital license you may fail to activate your original OEM license or digital license if the base was an OEM. Instead you will be granted a free full Windows 10 license key from the support team. This key may also be used for changed hardware or future installations on same hardware. This happened to me 3 times lately.
Personally, if my business was using a software agreement outside the terms of the license agreement, I wouldn't post it in the manufacturers forum. Interesting choice of username, considering...
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/company/licensing.html
KEYS / PIRACY
Acronis issues license keys for each license purchased. The end-user is authorized to use each license key to activate and use the Software within the parameters of this Licensing Policy. All subscription licenses are considered activated upon delivery unless a specific date is otherwise identified in the purchase order. When purchasing subscription licenses of any GroupLogic Software, all existing perpetual license s of that same GroupLogic Software are retired and terminated as of the shipment date of the purchase subscription licenses keys. The use, distribution, or sale of Acronis license keys for any purpose other than as specifically permitted by this Policy and in the End User License Agreement is strictly prohibited. Acronis takes all instances of unauthorized use of its Software seriously, and such unauthorized use may result in civil or criminal action to enforce the terms of the EULA and this Policy, and the imposition of civil or criminal fines or penalties. Subscription licensed Software may contain serial keys that are time-stamped and will deactivate upon expiration of the paid subscription term.
Karl,
VHDX will boot in Hyper V on source machine. You must recreate (re-convert) the tib file as a VHD however for it to work. In other words any tib files converted to VHD(X) in the BETA will still not work. Delet those a recreate them.
ok so they have addressed the issue. I will try it.
Yes, in my case I created a new backup file from which to convert to VHDX. I also setup a new VM in Hyper V to run the VHD in. I had two things that had to be dealt with. One was the conversion complained that it could not find a certain driver file in System32 folder, I chose to ignore this so that conversion would complete. Two, it took some time to configure and start the VHD in the VM. During this process I was asked to set display resolution to 1024 x 768 which I did then Hyper V shutdown and restarted then it took a fair bit of time to boot the VHD OS. Once booted to the logon screen and logon completed the VM ran a Windows update that was pending when I made the backup file but had no knowledge of. So that was encouraging I thought that such an update would be carried over to a VM.
Looking forward to your experiences.
I tried testing this last night but ran out of time. It does seem like the VHDX conversion takes quite a bit longer than just restoring the TIB file after booting the VM to the recovery environment. Maybe however the VHDX conversion does some other helpful things like automatic driver setup?
As further info: Yes, driver setup does occur. This is probably specific to Win 8, 8.1, and 10 however as these versions handle driver setup much better than previous versions. The process of driver setup does take time. Once you get the new VHD to boot in the VM then the next time you load it comes right up.
The purpose of having this ability for the most part was to give users whom have the hardware support for Virtual Machines a way of testing if a backup file can boot a restored full OS disk image file. The intent is to boot to a VM rather than have to do an actual restore to disk. No time savings but is handy for testing if a backup image will boot or not.
It is also a less problematic iteration of Try and Decide, as you can use a clone in form of a full backup of your current system, then doing a fullbackup of C, converting this one into VHD(X) and use it in Hyper-V or similar, using Snapshots to try out new software. 3D virtualisation is available in Hyper-V using RemoteFX