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Thread: Virtual Machine and Windows 7. Is it possible?

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
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    Ubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish

    Re: Virtual Machine and Windows 7. Is it possible?

    Quote Originally Posted by Spr0k3t View Post
    You are correct. The OEM licensed version of 7 can not be used in a virtual machine (legally). There are stop points in the installation that prevent it from completing an installation. Nevertheless, there are hacks to get around it... but that's way outside the scope of these forums as well as code of conduct.

    The retail version of 7 on the other hand works very well in a VM.
    That's what I thought. Thanks.

    @rvchari: They have VirtualBox 4.0 out and it's pretty nice.
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  2. #12
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Ubuntu Mate 20.04 Focal Fossa

    Re: Virtual Machine and Windows 7. Is it possible?

    If you use a retail DVD of Windows 7, you can install it and use the CD Key that came with your computer. The only thing you have to do though is you have to call to activate it. It won't activate over the internet.

    I don't like the "OEM" software licensing, cause technically, if I'm running it on a VM, the VM is software that is technically using the hardware it was originally installed on. I won't start a fight or a war, but I've installed my Windows 7 that came with my machine in a VM, so I could do Netflix.
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  3. #13
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    Mar 2009
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    Re: Virtual Machine and Windows 7. Is it possible?

    I answered a question awhile back here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...80&postcount=3

    An OEM Windows will not work. You need a separately purchased license, and moreover if you duplicate the VM and then run both copies, you need one license for each. I go into that more in that link. I think that thread applies to a whole lot of people, and it seems to be a fairly good discussion on it.

    Good luck and have fun.

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
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    Woonsocket, RI USA
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    Re: Virtual Machine and Windows 7. Is it possible?

    On the issue of start/end of the disk, I personally wouldn't worry about it, but there may be some small disk performance effects. I've seen it go both ways, though -- front faster and end faster -- so you'd need to run some tests to find out what you've got with your specific drive. You could use hdparm for this. Create two partitions of a few megabytes each, one at the front and one at the end of the disk (or use existing partitions, if they're suitably placed); then test them:

    Code:
    sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda1
    sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda1
    sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda1
    sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda2
    sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda2
    sudo hdparm -t /dev/sda2
    Note that the above example tests performance three times for each location. This minimizes the chance that you'll get bogus results because of some random system activity or other factor that might affect just one test. Average the results, but if one is wildly out of whack with the others, run another couple of tests just to be sure what's what and discard the outlier(s).

    If you find differences that are significant enough to concern you, you can move the existing Windows 7 installation to the end of the disk; however, you should not use GParted to do this. The reason is that Windows is very finicky about its boot partition, and it won't boot after you move its start point with GParted. I'm not positive, but I think it'll be OK if you use the Windows partitioning tools. Another option is to use a Windows backup utility to back up the Windows partition, then repartition and use the same tool to restore. I used DriveImage XML to do this once,[/url] and it worked fine. (I needed to create a bootable Windows emergency CD-ROM; the DriveImage XML site has a page with basic instructions and links.) Even if you don't end up moving your Windows partition, IMHO it's well worth putting together the necessary tools and creating a suitable backup; that way, if your drive dies or your Windows installation becomes badly corrupted, you'll be able to restore it without using the manufacturer's recovery disc, which might trash your Linux installation or require you to jump through your initial setup hoops all over again.

  5. #15
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
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    637
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: Virtual Machine and Windows 7. Is it possible?

    Quote Originally Posted by bruno9779 View Post
    Be careful with the recovery partition it creates. Legacy partitioning is limited to 4 primary partitions. Win7 will create 2 and WILL not tell you about it during the install process.
    If you don't have enough free partitions, it will just choose another partition and will overwrite it.
    If you partition the hard drive BEFORE starting the Win 7 install, Win 7 installs using only one partition. In my case, I have two computers each running Win XP and Win 7 in dual boot. Using gparted, I created 3 NTFS partitions, the first for XP, the second for Win 7, and the third for data. No problems and Win 7 did not create any extra partitions during install. I always us manual partitioning for Linux installs too.

    To the OP: I don't see the problem. If Win 7 is already installed, just use Win 7s manager to shrink its partition and use gparted to create the partitions for Ubuntu. I can't see any benefit to buying a new copy if Windows just to run it in a VM if Windows is already working. I think you are just asking for trouble.

    Jerry
    Last edited by Jerry N; January 17th, 2011 at 06:20 AM.

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