T wrote:


It is a vm. The only that that changed was the USB flash drives.
I did a full wipe of the hard drive before upgrading from 1803 to 1809

Isn't there some sort of identifier inside the VM that
identifies the container ?

The key you used, should follow the container.

If you attach a second (empty) VHD and clone over
the install to the second VHD, then delete the first
VHD, I would expect trouble.

I've not been able to verify that by the way. It
was just a claim I saw, that said there was some
unique "thing" on the container used. The Guest
environment would otherwise be too insulated to
probe directly. (Does an emulated NIC have a
unique MAC ???)

*******

From inside a Win10 VM Guest I run... looking for unique numbers.

C:\WINDOWS\system32wmic diskdrive get *
Availability BytesPerSector Capabilities
512 {3, 4, 10}

CapabilityDescriptions
{"Random Access", "Supports Writing", "SMART Notification"}

Caption CompressionMethod ConfigManagerErrorCode ConfigManagerUserConfig
VBOX HARDDISK 0 FALSE

CreationClassName DefaultBlockSize Description DeviceID
Win32_DiskDrive Disk drive \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0

ErrorCleared ErrorDescription ErrorMethodology FirmwareRevision
1.0

Index InstallDate InterfaceType LastErrorCode Manufacturer
0 IDE (Standard disk drives)

MaxBlockSize MaxMediaSize MediaLoaded MediaType
TRUE Fixed hard disk media

MinBlockSize Model Name NeedsCleaning
VBOX HARDDISK \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0

NumberOfMediaSupported Partitions PNPDeviceID
2 SCSI\DISK&VEN_VBOX&PROD_HARDDISK\4&2617AEAE&0&0000 00 ===

PowerManagementCapabilities PowerManagementSupported SCSIBus SCSILogicalUnit
0 0

SCSIPort SCSITargetId SectorsPerTrack SerialNumber
0 0 63 VB6ac4a490-1911585e ===

Signature
2678489361 ===

Size Status StatusInfo SystemCreationClassName SystemName
68713989120 OK Win32_ComputerSystem MYMACHINE

TotalCylinders TotalHeads TotalSectors TotalTracks TracksPerCylinder
8354 255 134207010 2130270 255

There are at least three numbers that look interesting there.

And inside the VM, the emulated Intel Pro/1000 NIC MAC is different than the host.
08-00-27-1E-EB-F3

So then the question is, what happens to those if the VHD moves to
another machine ?

*******

Since I've never wasted a license key on a VM install,
I can't comment on how "cranky" they are.

*******

I hope you didn't throw away the VHD file.

Maybe what you could do, is "format" the VHD with something,
zero it out, then do a Clean Install and see if preserving the
VHD also manages to preserve the license.

*******

https://www.zdnet.com/article/window...n-same-system/

"...when you move an existing VMware-based VM from one computer to another.

The first time you try to run that VM, it detects that the VM was moved
and asks if you want to keep it associated with VMware's unique identifier
(known as the UUID) for that virtual machine, or if you want to create one.

According to VMware, if you create a new UUID, that will trigger a change
to the MAC address which in turn could awaken the licensing Gods at Microsoft.
"

OK, in VirtualBox works, I can look at "Windows 10.vbox" file
with Wordpad, as it's an XML file.

HardDisk uuid="{6ac4a490-5e2c-41d2-95ff-d3115e581119}" === SerialNumber value inside
location="D:/Windows10.vhd" format="VHD" type="Normal"/

So how does that number "outside the machine", get "inside the machine" ?
Looking at bcdedit inside the Windows 10 Guest, it would be
"too late to figure out" if that number is in there too.

The last digits of the "resumeobject" in BCDEDIT, match
the MAC address... 0800271eebf3} Reinstalling would just
copy the new value, if there was a new value. That still
doesn't explain how the Guest MAC address is derived.

You would have to experiment with your materials, to figure out
what "change", changes the hardware signature items. The Guest
MAC is way more important than the disk serial number (since
I change disks all the time with OSes on them, clone over and
so on, without anything tipping over). No hardware identifier is
completely innocuous - it takes multiple of the "small ones"
changing to upset activation. But in normal usage, changing
the motherboard is bound to blow things up (NIC MAC). The
motherboard also has a serial number, but some of those
can be flashed, so for Microsoft that would not be
a very good identifier. I suppose even a physical NIC MAC
isn't immune from that either (I had one motherboard where
the BIOS flasher had a couple command line options to
change the MAC on Eth and the MAC on Firewire).

Paul