jrsilvey Thank you for your long response, and I look forward to hearing from you in the morning.
Microsoft's licensing arrangements are complicated, to say the least, particularly under enterprise licensing, as you noted about the pdf you sent about licensing in a virtual environment under enterprise licensing. I was the IT Director for a Microsoft enterprise customer, and one of my responsibilities was to ensure that every device in the enterprise was properly licensed. I am aware how complicated those arrangements can get.
Enterprise licensing, however, is not applicable to consumer licensing. Consumer licensing is very different from enterprise licensing.
Consumer licenses are of two types: (1) OEM licenses that are bound to the UUID of a particular device, and (2) Retail licenses that are bound to a particular device. OEM licenses can be used on one and only one device, but retail licenses can be used and reused on different devices, within reasonable limits, so long as the product is not used on more than one device at a time.
I understand how a retail license can be used to activate Windows 10 in a VM. Because retail licenses are not tied to a particular device, a VM install is, as far as Microsoft licensing is concerned, no different than a hardware install. So long as a retail license is used on only one device (hardware or VM) at a time, Microsoft could care less whether the device is a VM or a hardware device. Enter the retail license Product Key in a VM and you are good to go, as long as that license is not installed on any other VM or hardware device.
My question involves OEM licenses (that's the license you get when you buy a computer with Windows 10 installed on it) which are the most common type of consumer license. OEM licenses are tied to a particular device, identified by the device UUID. The device may run Windows 10 through a local account or through a Microsoft Account, it makes no difference. If you install through a Microsoft Account, you get "Windows is activated with a digital license linked to your Microsoft account". If you install through a local account, you get "Windows is activated with a digital license".
The important thing to understand is that digital activation of an OEM license is bound to a particular device, identified to Microsoft by the device UUID. The license never goes away for that device, once activated, but it cannot be used on any other device. If you install Windows on a different device, and try to activate using the Product Key of an OEM license not bound to that device, the license will not activate. In short, an OEM license follows the machine, not the consumer.
It is that issue that leads to my question -- what happens with an OEM license when you install Windows in a VM on a Linux device? That's going to be the most common situation for people who are installing Windows in a VM on a Linux computer that originally came with Windows.
Take my situation for example. I run five computers, all of which came with Windows installed and licensed under and OEM license. I activated the license on each of the computers when I first installed Windows. My Windows license remains in force for each of those computers, even those on which I'm running Linux as my OS. I can, and do, depending on my needs of the moment, move back and forth between Windows installs and Linux installs on those computers.
At present, I now run two of the computers using Windows with a license linked to my Microsoft Account, two using Solus, and one using Windows under a local account. The question I have is this: If I install a Windows VM on the Linux computers, does the Windows install on the VM activate under the OEM license bound to those computers?
To do so, it seems to me, Windows would have to recognize the UUID through the virtual environment in some way, because otherwise Microsoft would not recognize the hardware to which the OEM license is bound.
I've done some searching in Microsoft documents, and I haven't yet found the answer. I asked you about your experience with it, because I hoped you might be able to tell me what happened. Because you installed the VM on a Linux computer that came with Windows installed (an OEM license) you are in a position to find out how (or if, perhaps) Windows is licensed in the VM. Does the OEM license activate in the VM, or not?
I don't mean to pester you, but I'm curious because I think that it is an issue that will affect a lot of people.
