Windows 10: Windows 11 virtual machine installation size grows more than 6GB

This is really annoying.I believe after installing June update, all my Windows 11 VMs grow by more than 5GB in size. They use to be around 12GB, now each main disk grows to 16 to 18GB.Note - The numbers are what I get after I did defragmenation both in VM and host VMware is simpler while VirtualBox takes more procedures.I really want to know what is that 6GB.

:)

 

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.

 

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.

 

Windows 11 Virtual Machine on Windows 11

Hi, I have an Acer Nitro Laptop: 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H, 16gb RAM, 64bit, Running Windows 11 Home that I'm trying to run a virtual machine on of Windows 11. I'm using the program "Oracle VM VirtualBox" Version 6.1.34r150636 (Qt5.6.2) and downloaded the Windows 11 ISO File from the Microsoft website. But for some reason the Virtual machine will not launch. It will load for about 5 - 10min then the error message as shown in the image will pop up then the Machine will try to reboot but the same error happens again. The settings for the virtual machine are setup according to this YouTube video:



The only difference I could see is the display tab in settings in VirtualBox where it says "Monitor Count:" for me that whole slider bar is red, from 1 - 8. I've tried leaving 6gb and 8gb of RAM for the Virtual Machine, 2 and 4 CPUs, 256MB Video Memory.

I've used VirtualBox in the past to run a Virtual Machine of Linux Ubuntu and it worked perfectly on one of my older laptops so I tried to run Linux Ubuntu 22.04 through the ISO file from their website and still the Virtual Machine will not launch.

I've followed a tutorial on how to enable virtualization in the Acer BIOS and both "Intel VTX" and "Intel VTD" were Enabled by default.

I'm doing this because I need to run two versions of the same program on this computer.

At this point I feel like I've tried everything.. Please help