I am trying to set up a Duel Booting system as described by Wendel, but I’m a bit worried about the Window 10 License. Does anyone know which license I would need for windows? OEM? Retail? Or do I need a license for when I boot in a VM and when I boot physically? If so how do I keep two license keys on one physical installation?
Microsoft Licenses confuse me. Thank you for any help.
We just had a thread about this.
If you already have a license, use that. If you need a new one, buy whatever’s cheaper.
Just one license per installation. This is a bit of a grey area though, since they don’t specifically cover this use case.
or don’t buy win licences at all …
Use your key you already have and if you for some ungodly reason wanna buy another: buy some cheap russian or chinese key off the innerwebz for a buck or two.
I don’t encourage violating license or grey market. It’s both personal and because I represent the forum as a leader.
If you want to do that, don’t talk about it here.
I can’t remember if I put this on the previous thread.
The correct way for a personal VM on your own desktop to be accessed locally by you is to purchase a Retail licence. You can find them cheaper than purchasing directly from Microsoft. Always go for Windows Pro and not home, home is hobbled and missing features like Bitlocker which should be standard for any OS these days.
OEM licences are for builders of physical machines to use, IIRC they have a lower threshold on what hardware changed triggers a reactivation so generally best avoided.
Personally I don’t bother running Windows in a VM in Linux. I go the other way and will sometimes boot Linux but will often just access my Linux disks passed through to a Hyper-V VM. Linux is much better at dealing with hardware changes each boot than Windows 
Dual booting… Extract the key from BIOS with a tool like RWEverything and use that as that key is attached to your machine.
Virtualization… You will need to buy a retail key.
Thanks I think I’ll play it safe and grab a retail license for pro.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
download, and get a key later if you want the bells and whistles… I have a key but still dont use it under my vm.
actually I have 2 keys counting my laptop. if they want to get shitty i still have proof ive paid for it. but its directly downloaded under their site.
fyi if you use the link, try to download under linux or mac. for some reason under windows it makes you download their stupid tool that makes it take twice as long… also ive found their copy only lasts 1 iso usage… never had that issue before