Windows 10: How to move a retail license to another VM.

If I create a VM and activate it with a retail license and at a later date want to move it to another VM, how would I do that without having an issue with the activation on the new VM?

:)

 

Questions on Windows 10 licensing for a Hyper-V VM


I have a Windows 10 Pro machine which supports virtualization.

I want to create a hyper-V VM running Windows 10 as the guest host. I have some questions on licensing and any activation issues that might occur

1. I expect I'll need to buy a 2nd Win 10 license
   • Does it need to be a retail license?
   • Or can I a buy an OEM license? (I’ll always use the 2nd license for a virtual machine on the same PC but never run more then one VM at a time)
2. If i wanted to create multiple VMs (gen-1 and gen-2) could I use that 2nd license each time? Again, assuming i'll never actually having more then one VM running at a time.
3. And just curious: Does anyone know if MS simply recognizes 2 licenses both for the same PC? If I did a fresh reinstall in the future, would it make any difference which license i lthen used for the PC and which for the VM?

 

Windows 10 retail licensing

I have a question regarding windows 10 retail licensing. We have a software package that requires us to run its master copy on a windows 10 machine, instead of server 2016. For uptime reasons we want it to run as a single virtual machine on our virtualized
vSphere environment with vMotion enabled. The only time there will be anybody logged on to this machine is to apply updates or troubleshoot. Do we need a retail license for every physical host it might run on (because of vMotion), or is it suffice to buy one
license, since it is a single VM with only a single simultanious user working on it? To me, the EULA article 2 leaves me with a bit ambiguity, and I want to make sure we do not run in licensing problems.

 

Previously used license keys, which one to re-use for a VM


I always been buying retail versions of Windows.
Right now I have a few licenses from v7/8/8.1 upgraded to W10 and a single new retail license (USB thumbdrive) of Windows 10.

The new retail version I use on my host pc.
The 'upgraded' versions I have used/installed/uninstalled before on another pc or as VM, but all deactivated.

I have the first/original v7/v8-license keys, but probably they became null and void after they have been upgraded to W10(?)

There is 1 VM running using some 'upgraded' license key.
I'd like to create a new, 2nd, VM, using another key.


Here is the problem:
Frankly, I have no idea how to proceed.
I may install CU version from USB (media creation tool), but likely at one point in time I may need to enter a key.
However, I don't know which key has been used for the existing VM, i.e. which of the remaining upgraded keys are 'free' to use.

Any suggestions as to how to proceed. Is this a kind of trial and error and see which key is accepted?

Thanks
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