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The Windows 10 auto-activation system is quite nice: you no longer need to type in serial numbers to re-install the OS on the same machine - the machine's identity is used to activate it.

When doing a free upgrade you don't even get a Windows 10 serial number - your activation is simply linked to the machine's identity that you are upgrading.

How does this work on a virtual machine (not specifically through Microsoft's special VM server with its own activation system, but any, like VirtualBox)? These machines can be made identical everywhere. I guess VirtualBox (and presumably others) create a random MAC address for each new machine, but they also give you the ability to change it easily. Everything else is likely to be nearly identical in different VMs. Could someone just share the MAC address and get a Windows 10 VM that is activated?

Or maybe, since Windows knows it is a VM, will it require a license key? In this case, will a free upgrade not work?

[I will be updating my Windows 8.1 VirtualBox VM to Windows 10 and wondering how this will work]

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I think the Windows 10 auto-activation system has the capabilities to use multiples sources for verify the machine's identity :

The first may be the SMBIOS UUID (Universal Unique IDentifier), on VMware, the documentation says that each virtual machine has a universal unique identifier (UUID). The UUID is generated when you initially power on the virtual machine. and each UUID is stored in the SMBIOS system information descriptor

More informations can be found here : https://pubs.vmware.com/workstation-9/index.jsp#com.vmware.ws.using.doc/GUID-533B2C4F-7BD5-41EB-8392-2B9FE687AE50.html

The second may be eventually the volume serial number of C: drive (Disk Or C: partition GUID for GPT), and the last can be the first network card's MAC adress

--- Sources ---

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/101892-what-is-a-host-id-or-machine-id-how-do-i-find-my-host-id-machine-id-in-order-to-activate-or-get

https://software.intel.com/en-us/Uniqueness-of-UUID

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_serial_number

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

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  • Thanks. While the volume ID is quite easy to change, the SMBIOS UUID is not really easy to change (people have managed in Virtual Box to change it, but not easily). So this does seem like its 'safe' from being used by others and becoming unusable by me.
    – thaimin
    Aug 31, 2015 at 19:26
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    What is your source for "thinking" Windows 10 Digital Entitlement is built on these identifiers? Lots of people "think" lots of things about this, especially implicating the UUID, but I'm finding it oddly difficult to find any proof/official statement. It's highly likely, based on inference alone, but I hope we can find more evidence than speculation.
    – underscore_d
    Aug 1, 2016 at 18:36
  • Re: Veracity of the claim: There was once a bug on VirtualBox that produced an all 0 smBIOS UUID. this caused windows activation to fail. It was fixed in 4.3.2 (virtualbox.org/manual/ch15.html). I think it's likely that this is just ONE thing they look at rather than the only thing.
    – bobpaul
    Mar 15, 2018 at 1:35

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