Windows 10: Best procedure to wipe windows clean in Virtual Machine and start over

Hi, I use a VMWare Workstation Player 17 the free version to run a licensed Windows 10 operating system.I use this VM to practice and run programs and stay isolated from my main system.The VM is running slow, and I am trying to troubleshoot this.I would like to wipe the VM clean, or delete it and start over from scratch.If I delete the VM and reinstall a new version of Windows 10 in a brand new VM, will I be able to use my license that I had from the old Windows setup?

:)

 

Clean install of W10 not possible in Virtual Machine.


Please get a cup of coffee, lean back and think an answer for these two questions. Take your time, then check the answers below the questions:

Questions:

1. If you do a clean install of let's say Windows 10 Insider Build 10525 on a totally new computer which has never had an activated Windows 10 on it, does it activate?
2. If you do a clean install of Windows 10 Insider Build on a computer where the underlying Windows 10, upgraded from a qualifying old operating system has already been activated, does it activate?

Answers:

1. No, of course not.
2. Yes, of course.

Why do you think that a virtual machine would make any difference? You have tried to install Windows 10 on a totally new machine which has never had an activated Windows 10 installed, therefore the Microsoft activation servers block the activation due invalid machine ID. In the highlighted part in below quote you admit your mistake yourself, plain and simple, yet you when doing this wrong draw conclusion that even if done correctly it would not work:

What you have tried is essentially the same as if you took a brand new real physical PC without any operating system, which has never had any operating system, and then installed Windows 10 Insider Preview wondering why it does not activate! Virtual Machines behave exactly the same way; if you want to clean install Windows 10 Insider Preview and get it activated you must do it on an existing virtual machine, one which has already had an upgraded Windows 10 activated. This "computer", the virtual machine, its machine ID is marked on activation servers as valid and activated and it will of course activate.

Be it a virtual machine or a physical computer, you cannot activate a clean installed Windows 10 Insider Preview on a totally new machine. How difficult can this be to understand?

When clean installing Windows 10 Insider Preview on a computer which has already had a previous Windows 10 Insider activated, you do not use the product key! It will be asked twice, once before the installation starts and once after the last reboot to OOBE phase. In both cases you skip the product key and your Windows will be automatically activated.

 

Clean install of W10 not possible in Virtual Machine.


@Kari

You can do clean install with windows 10 but it won't activate on Virtual Machine at least it didn't on mine. I followed the proper steps to do that.

Again I will repeat what I did step by step with some additions.

Step 1 Installed windows 7 retail on a virtual box, it activated without issue.
Step 2 changed the virtual box description to windows 10
Step 3 upgrade to windows 10 and it activated without issue
Step 4 backed up (So I could go back to it later)
Step 5 Removed windows 10.
Step 6 created a new virtual machine
Step 7 Installed clean windows 10 and it didn't activate and did that error code see below.


@night-hawk had a similar issue and got the same error code

Error code: 0xC004C003 with the specified product key being blocked

Night Hawk does it make a difference on what version of Virtual box that you are using?

My testing was done on Xubuntu using VirtualBox Graphical user interface version 4.3.26-Ubuntu r98988

 

Installing a Virtual Machine in Windows 10

Step #1 is to decide which virtual machine software you wish to install.

The three most popular choices are:

• VirtualBox (from Oracle)
• VMWare Workstation Player (from VMWare); and
• Hyper-V (from Microsoft)

Once you've made your choice you can find detailed, illustrated instructions for installing each one on the internet.

As a personal suggestion: You might find it easier to use either VirtualBox or VMWare Workstation Player. Hyper-V is more complicated to setup.

Between VirtualBox and VMWare, I think you'll find VirtualBox more user-friendly, and it has the advantage of allowing you to create checkpoints - backups of your virtual machine - whereas to do that in VMWare you'll need to upgrade to their (expensive!)
paid version.