Windows 10: Do I need to activate Win 10 Pro >again< on VM after re/clean install?

I installed Windows 7 Ultimate retail on a new VM. Activated it online then upgraded it to Windows 10. The upgrade was a huge pain (Windows Update problem, if you've been there, you know what I mean) so I really don't want to do that again...

After I upgraded successfully to Windows 10 (it upgraded as activated of course) I realised I am only using 64GB of my virtual hard drive and can't seem to "Extend" this partition to take up the full 128GB of host ssd I've allocated due to a 400MB "Recovery" partition in the middle.

Because of that, my immediate thought is to re-install Windows 10 Pro.

Now Windows 10, once activated, will remember the hardware of your machine so you can do a fresh installation and it will not ask you for the cd-key or ask you to re-activate. I know this. However this is a Virtual machine. Will it work the same? If I use the VM to download a Win 10 iso and do a fresh install (so I can install to the whole 128GB virtual harddisk) will it ask me to reactivate?

Thank you.
L

:)

 

I was using retail windows 7 Pro SP1. I upgraded to windows 10, a licence is tied to my PC. After that If I clean installed windows 7 Pro and activated it with my product key.

<Original title: Re-activation of Windows 10.>

I was using retail windows 7 Pro SP1. I upgraded to windows 10, a licence is tied to my PC. After that If I clean installed windows 7 Pro and activated it with my product key , Then after July 29, 2016, If i again clean install windows 10, Is Windows 10
will be automatically activated on my PC or not?

 

How many installs of Win 10 on a single activation code?

I purchased a clean license of Win 10 from Microsoft and installed it under a VM Ware Fusion machine on a Mac Laptop. I want to install again on another computer (MacPro) also running VM Ware Fusion.

Do I need to purchase a new license or can I activate the same Win OS on more than one machine?

Can I move my license to the other computer?

Also, does it matter if I download Pro or Standard for the activation code to work?

 

You have to use same VM - best option is to double click on ISO and run setup.exe whilst running Windows in VM and select not to keep anything. In theory, you should be able to boot from ISO and clean install, and it should work ok but I have had mixed experience.

 

Thank you for this.

Question about licence/activation on a VM

I found a reply from another member who explained the situation very well.
I am going to do a clean install on my activated machine and will post the result here after I'm done.

This better be faster than upgrading from Windows 7!!! *Smile

 

Changing the VHD of your VM, or moving VHD to another physical disk (HDD or SSD) does not change the digital signature of your VM. You should be OK even if you formatted the HDD / SSD where the VHD now is and created a VHD, then attached it to VM replacing the original.

Just to be sure I would first export or image the VM, though.

 

I have had a couple of cases where clean installing in an existing VM (hyper-v) failed to activate (correct version etc) and had to use the activation troubleshooter to get it activated. I guess things are not as robust as one might wish to believe.

Exporting VM first is a good plan.