Home Premium 64 bit physical machine to 32 bit VM

[howardmatts]

I've see a lot of threads that hit around my question but haven't yet found the one that answered it completely.

About 6 months ago I bought an HP laptop that came with 7HP 64 bit. I dual booted it with Linux and everything worked great until... Last week Windows crashed. Linux still worked fine and I was able to pull all of my documents off of the Windows partition and save them on the Linux partition. I tried everything I could to recover Windows. The HP discs that I purchased with the laptop, the Macrium disc I made, the HP recovery partition, anti-virus rescue discs, Hiren's BCD and a Windows 7 HP disc I borrowed from a friend. Nothing would repair it.

Now I'm at a crossroads. I primarily use Linux on this machine and would like to simply run 7 as a VM. When I try this it will only run as 32 bit and the activation code will not work. Since this is on the same physical machine that 7 originally came on is there any way to activate my copy of Windows on the VM? I'm hoping to not have to buy a $100 license when I just bought a new laptop that came with 7HP.

 

[Indianatone]

Hi and welcome to Seven Forums Howard.
A couple of questions, is the version of Linux 64 bit? If the host OS is 32 bit then you cannot install a 64 bit Virtual Machine. As far as I am aware the keys for Windows are the same regardless of 32/64 bit. Therefore I suspect HP Windows OEM Home Premium may not like being a virtual machine as it is expecting HP hardware and is reading virtual hardware so will not activate. I'll ask someone to see if they can help you reinstall your Windows 7 should you wish to do this.

 

[gregrocker]

To start Win7 you need to Mark Active Win7 partition or it's 100mb System Reserved partition (preferred if you have it) then run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times.

Then Dual Boot - Windows 7 and Linux - Windows 7 Forums following this method.

You can also get the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 .

Since you're on the exact same hardware then I don't see why the VM won't activate with the Factory OEM Product Key however I don't use virtual machines so you'd need to ask someone who does like Brink.

 

[Kari]

Since you're on the exact same hardware then I don't see why the VM won't activate with the Factory OEM Product Key however I don't use virtual machines so you'd need to ask someone who does like Brink.

The problem is OP most certainly has got a modified HP specific OEM version of Windows 7, which only runs and can be installed on specific HP computers.

A virtual machine uses its own emulated hardware. Trying to install an OEM version to a virtual machine, the Windows setup sees this emulated virtual environment as a completely different hardware setup and installation wont work.

Installing a manufacturer and hardware specific OEM version on a virtual machine would need so much hacking it would be totally against EULA, if not outright illegal.

Kari