ThaCrip, it is great to hear you are running Windows 11 within QEMU/KVM. It gives me some reassurance I am on the correct path. Your idea to share files between a real PC and a QEMU/KVM virtual machine via a Samba share is golden information. You are correct about the GPU passthrough requiring a second GPU. I was thinking of adding an AMD GPU since the NVIDIA ones I hear are a pain to configure as a passthrough in a Linux Mint PC. I have an i7-5775C 3.30 GHZ, 4 Cores with 8 threads CPU. I am assuming it is SSE4.2 compliant because its release date is May 2015 which is three years newer than your 2012 i5 CPU. So, I think this is inline with what you mention in your P.S. section at the end of your post about SSE4.2. Additionally, the ThioJoe YouTube video at the link below is also inline with what you say about SSE4.2. In short, ThioJoe says I should not care about having a CPU that does not meet the Windows11 CPU requirements because of SSE4.2 makes what Microsoft is doing with Windows 11 irrelevant. So, does that mean the massgrave HWID medicine you mention will continue to be a permanent fix? I ask because I Googled massgrave HWID and read a Reddit post that mentions Microsoft has patched HWID spoofing and therefore no longer works on Windows10 and 11 and that HWID has now been replaced by KMS38 which does work. I hope to hear back from you with any comment you may on this matter.
Like you I do not like the direction that Windows is going with Windows 11. I heard somewhere that the Windows 11 EULA now includes a clause that requires you agree to Microsoft owning your personal content. I guess they plan on using one's personal data for training future ChatGPT language models. In short, I am glad I have for the past 2 years been using Linux Mint and I have to say it is not a bad OS. The only downside is it does not natively support some apps I use in Windows10. And for this reason I am pursuing the idea of creating an ISO of my entire Windows Hard Disk so I can run it in Linux Mint using a QEMU/KVM virtual machine setup. And configured with a Samba Share I think that will help a lot in moving files around from my Windows10 VM to my Linux Mint OS that runs on bare metal. Nevertheless, I am thinking once Oct 2025 comes around I will have to figure out a way to keep my Windows10 VM fenced in so Microsoft doesn't sabotage it in the future with an end of life update designed to make my Windows 10 OS very slow. I hear they tend to do that so they can convince you to upgrade to Windows11. I think the solution to this problem will be to assign my WIndows10 VM to a PRIVATE Virtual Switch for a Network Adapter. But all in all, I guess time will tell how long I can hold on to my Windows10 OS which already has all the apps I need to use installed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T49zo_DV3QY
