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Thread: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

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    Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    I need to use my PC for personal and business use. I want to have the business stuff on its own harddrive/SSD. Do I need to buy a 2nd windows licence, or will it mess things up trying to register two licences to one PC given how MS apparently logs the machine details and auto-links them to the windows account these days?

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    I don't see why that would be an issue. I think Microsoft has been around long enough to have made a solution to all the people duel booting.

    Last I heard it just used the Motherboard, CPU, GPU and HDD serial number with the license auto authenticating as long as 3/4 match. Plus it's not like you can boot with the license active on multiple machines anyway if it's all on one machine. I've had a license that I originally had on a laptop that I used on my desktop when I reinstalled windows cause it was a pro license rather than home.

    Windows licenses only cost ~£7 anyway so it's probably less than half the cost of the cheapest harddrive you can find anyway so it's worth a try before you go and buy an extra license.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Is this just a temporary thing due to wfh @atemporal? If so make sure your work pays anything you have to shell for. It's not fair to expect workers to cough up. Are they not giving you a laptop or something?

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    I'd consider a Virtual Machine over dual booting in your scenario.

    I'd put the business stuff on the Virtual Machine, unless you're doing CAD/CAM or some 3D digital work, you probably don't need the graphics oomph that you would say playing a game.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Quote Originally Posted by AGTDenton View Post
    I'd consider a Virtual Machine over dual booting in your scenario.

    I'd put the business stuff on the Virtual Machine, unless you're doing CAD/CAM or some 3D digital work, you probably don't need the graphics oomph that you would say playing a game.
    What would a virtual machine achieve/how does that work? Is that like a subscription cloud thing? I'd have to install some licensed work software onto it so not sure if that is possible with a cloud thing.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    ps I think I know the answer to this already, but is it ok to buy a VLK win10 key or is that dodgy and not a good idea?

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Quote Originally Posted by atemporal View Post
    What would a virtual machine achieve/how does that work? Is that like a subscription cloud thing? I'd have to install some licensed work software onto it so not sure if that is possible with a cloud thing.
    A Virtual Machine is software that will run on your local PC with no requirement for the Cloud.
    The top 3 free options are VMWare Workstation Player, Oracle Virtual Box & Microsoft Hyper-V.

    You boot to the main OS as normal. From within that OS you create a secondary virtualised OS environment to be used as and when you need to work.
    That way you don't need to be booting in and out of two operating systems, that method starts to become a pain. As I'll highlight: Initially boot to business OS to do your work, then you finished with work, now you have to close down all your work, reboot, login to home OS, oops you forgot to send an Email, close all my apps, reboot to business OS, login, send the email, reboot back to home OS..... you can see how it will be a waste of time and get annoying.
    With a Virtual Machine, once you've finished with your work you can leave all your applications open, then it's as simple as closing a window and you're back to your main OS for home day to day stuff, no reoots, no swapping users, no waste of time. You can also leave the VM running all the time in a windowless mode and connect ad hoc via RDP.

    Other advantages are:
    • if you were to change PC, you wouldn't need to install the Virtualised PC again, you just detach it from current PC, reattach it to the new one and you're up & running in no time as it was when you last used it.
    • No requirement for a second physical hard drive, keeping costs low.
    • No requirement for messy partitions on a single drive



    On my work laptop I had two usernames to achive what you're trying to do, one for work and one for home, but I ended up finding it a complete pain to switch. So I just merged everything into a single user.

    I ought to point out, regardless of whether you choose dual boot or a virtual Machine you will need a second Windows license.

    Highly recommend having a look here as a beginners guide to Virtual Machines, it really will save you a lot of time:
    https://www.howtogeek.com/196060/beg...tual-machines/
    Last edited by AGTDenton; 23-02-2021 at 09:23 PM.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    That intro is really useful thanks, It would be great not having to constantly go into BIOS to select the relevant OS drive. However it does make it sound like the thing evaporates when you close it, which presumably can't be right?

    Assuming it doesn't evaporate can I keep the VM file on a storage HDD and then load it to the OS drive when required rather than have it permanently on the c: or does it not work in that way?

    Presumably I'd need a big main drive too? I only have 200GB and it's over half full already.

    How much ram/resource would I need?

    Do you know how would installing software like autocad and revit work with this? I always found them clunky/jittery over vpn/remote desktop. Would this be the same problem?
    Last edited by atemporal; 23-02-2021 at 10:49 PM.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    I think there was a thread on virtual machines a while back. Let me see if I can find it.

    edit yup I think this is what I'm thinking of: https://forums.hexus.net/software/42...m-dummies.html

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Thanks. I think that's the one I started but the posts quickly went over my head and I gave up after reading some of the links.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Quote Originally Posted by atemporal View Post
    That intro is really useful thanks, It would be great not having to constantly go into BIOS to select the relevant OS drive. However it does make it sound like the thing evaporates when you close it, which presumably can't be right?

    Assuming it doesn't evaporate can I keep the VM file on a storage HDD and then load it to the OS drive when required rather than have it permanently on the c: or does it not work in that way?
    The guest OS doesn't evaporate, you want to treat it like a physical PC. For example when you come to closing the environment you have the option of 'save state', 'send shutdown signal' & 'power off'. Powering off would be like pulling the plug or having a powercut risking data loss in the same way as a physical PC. The save state option effectively freezes the OS, so anything that was open, or in the middle of processing would return to that exact state when you started the virtual machine again, similar to hibernate/sleep modes. And sending the shutdown signal would be the same as going to Start > Shutdown.

    Everything you do & save within the guest OS is saved like it would if it were a physical machine.
    The guest OS virtual hard drive is seen as one large file from the hosts OS point of view.

    You can change the storage location of your guest OS at anytime. So if you start on C: but run out of space you could move it to a future D: drive.


    Quote Originally Posted by atemporal View Post
    How much ram/resource would I need?

    Presumably I'd need a big main drive too? I only have 200GB and it's over half full already.
    What's the spec of your whole computer?
    200GB is a little short, but another advantage of a Virtual Machine is that you could store the guest hard drive on an external device should you already have one, but unless its at least USB3 connectivity you would struggle on performance.
    I'd also recommend 16GB of RAM minimum. Though I run one happily on my 12GB laptop, my demands & usage are far lower.


    Quote Originally Posted by atemporal View Post
    Do you know how would installing software like autocad and revit work with this? I always found them clunky/jittery over vpn/remote desktop. Would this be the same problem?
    Depending on the spec of your PC and the requirements of Autocad this could be the achilles heal as to whether a VM would be fast enough.
    Unfortunately without trial and error I know nothing about Autocad. I would say if it runs ok on the HOST OS there's some chance it will be alright in the guest OS.

    Remember you can test the VM method without upsetting your PC, unlike the dual boot method, which could leave you completely unbootable if something doesnt go right. Before purchasing you can install Windows 10 without a key to give things a go and see what its like with AutoCad. Trialing the VM method won't cause any risk to data or change the dynamics of the current setup.

    This video might help answer a couple of questions and gives a visual demonstration of setting up a virtual machine. Unfortunately his guest OS is Linux, but the same principles apply.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB_5fqiysi4

    I agree that this is a large learning curve but it's a great skill to adopt.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Silly question but if moved to a D: cna that same file then be opened by another machine? (my laptop say) - that would be super useful.

    As an extension if the drive is encrypted by bitlocker go or whatever the portable version is, is that enough for security if I lose/get stolen the drive? My understanding of that would be on connecting the drive to any machine it won't open without a password, and then it doesn't matter whethr the virtual OS is set to bitlocker or not, the storage drive provides the security?

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Quote Originally Posted by atemporal View Post
    Silly question but if moved to a D: cna that same file then be opened by another machine? (my laptop say) - that would be super useful.
    That should be technically possible, need to make sure things like MAC address are the same, don't know if it would upset Windows licence but it should be easy to test. There might be preferred methods out there to achieve the desired effect. You couldn't run the guest on two hosts at the same time. Would possibly create a wormhole.

    Quote Originally Posted by atemporal View Post
    As an extension if the drive is encrypted by bitlocker go or whatever the portable version is, is that enough for security if I lose/get stolen the drive? My understanding of that would be on connecting the drive to any machine it won't open without a password, and then it doesn't matter whethr the virtual OS is set to bitlocker or not, the storage drive provides the security?
    Good question on security, bitlocker would be fine, just has to be unlocked and the drive set to the same letter each time when you want to use it. If you use a lot of USB devices I'd probably set the external drive to a higher letter like V: for Virtual Machine then you'll less likely run into any conflicts.

    There might be other in-built VM security but I'd have to google the options as I've never needed it.

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    Lol at potential wormhole but I was meaning non-simultaneously, so mainly working from desktop, but if travelling to a meeting I pop the drive in an enclosure and run it on the laptop. That could save masses of space on the laptop internal drive.

    If the OS is virtual and sandboxed, presumably all saved files have to stay within that virtual environment? I would usually try and run a storage D: drive separate from the working OS C: drive with all the software etc. Backup then easy, just do D: for sensitive stuff. If it's sandboxed it makes that harder?

    Sorry, this must be like noddy goes to VM school. I appreciate your time with this!

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    I can't see any reason for it to not work in that scenario. Admittedly never tested but I might have a play on my laptop's and see if what it's like. I have an external SSD drive so the performance should be there.

    Out of interest what processors would you be using on both machines?


    Yes all saved files would be saved within the environment. So they'd be there regardless of what PC you're using.
    And no problems I've little else to do at the moment

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    Re: Mutiple win10 licences on same machine? Possible?

    3900x and i7-6750U I think (aka the constant throttler)

    but the files would not be accessible outside of the VM, ie you couldn't access them off a colleagues PC in the way a normal external drive would? (and would there be a way to make the d: function that way? i.e. the virtual c: is sandboxed, but files can be saved to a d: that can be seen like a normal external drive independently of the virtual c: and OS)

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