ISO an Existing Win10 Hard drive?

[matrix99]

Can ImgBurn create an ISO of an existing Windows10 OS Hard Drive that has 3rd party apps already installed beforehand? My plan is to take this Win10 ISO and use it inside of a VirtualBox VM I have running in Linux Mint.  Will my idea work?  I ask because I am uncertain if ImgBurn can create an ISO of an existing Win10 OS. And also whether VirtualBox will accept such an ISO.  If ImgBurn cannot create such an ISO please share any alternatives that may work. Any opinions welcome.

Edited February 18 by matrix99

[dbminter]

ImngBurn can create such an ISO, but whether that ISO will backup all files is questionable.  And whether that ISO can be made "bootable" in a virtual machine or run as a Windows installation I wouldn't know.  I've never done any virtualization, so I know nothing about VirtualBox.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

ImgBurn is not the tool for this job.

Try here instead:

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/convert-physical-machine-to-virtual-machine-virtualbox

[matrix99]

31 minutes ago, LIGHTNING UK! said:

ImgBurn is not the tool for this job.

Try here instead:

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/convert-physical-machine-to-virtual-machine-virtualbox

Thank you for the Windowclub link Lightning UK.  It feels great to learn my crazy idea actually has a path toward realization and it also feels great I do not have to reinstall all the numerous third party apps I use in my Windows 10 OS from scratch again. I will be downloading Disk2vhd to fully test it out.  All of this is in preparation for how Microsoft plans to cutoff support for Windows10 in the near future. My PC does not have the minimum requirements needed to run Windows 11. So I plan to hold on to my Windows 10 PC on a virtual basis using Virtualbox.  My only hope now is my Windows 10 OS does not end up operating in a sluggish manner once it is mounted to Virtualbox running on a Linux Mint OS. However, Google tells me running QEMU paired with QtEmu might be a better VM option on Linux Mint over Virtualbox. QEMU from what I have learned is not as sluggish compared to VirtualBox plus it allows for GPU passthrough while Virtualbox on the other hand charges you for this capability at an extra cost. Hopefully, the VDI file format mentioned in the Windowclub link is supported by QEMU.  Again thanks for your help.

[ThaCrip]

Windows 10 is officially supported until Oct 2025. Windows 11 will run on hardware that's not officially supported but requires a bit of extra effort to install.

I also run Linux Mint (currently 21.2-Xfce) on my machines. in fact, I even run Windows 11 (and it's "activated" (the method I used to activate ('massgrave github' ; using 'HWID', which is the best) works on Win10/Win11)) in a QEMU/KVM virtual machine on my i5-3550 CPU which is not even officially supported and it works fine using official Windows 11 ISO straight from Microsoft. you can see QEMU/KVM emulates TPM v2.0. but I agree QEMU/KVM feels lighter than VirtualBox. side note: I noticed the 'activation' of Win10/11 using certain software seems to tie the activation to the QEMU/KVM's UUID of the virtual machines virtual HDD setup. because I noticed if I wipe it and start fresh, the activation is disabled. but if I restore the same UUID when I activated it, the activation is automatic with no further interaction needed as you just install Windows like usual and skip the key part etc during setup and once on the desktop you will notice it's automatically activated. but if I change the UUID of the virtual machine, like when you start a fresh one, the previous activation will no longer work. so it's easy enough to just use the same UUID in the future. on a real machine you would not have to worry about that UUID stuff if you installed Win11 directly on real hardware and activated it.

even when it comes to file sharing between my real PC and the QEMU/KVM virtual machine I just setup a Samba share on my main Mint machine and then you can access it from the Win11 virtual machine etc.

but at least on my i5-3550 CPU, you can't really expect native level performance when using a virtual machine (but performance is passable, especially if you don't plan on using it too much). but I generally don't use Windows, but it's nice to have on the rarer occasion where I need it in which case I use the VM. but generally the small amount of Windows software and limited amount of games I play all work on Linux Mint like Foobar2000/ImgBurn etc.

also, you mentioned 'GPU passthrough'. while I never used this personally, from what I read, it seems you can only use it if you have a spare GPU that you are currently not using on Mint, which I can't imagine most people have (I don't).

but given the direction things are going with Windows with Windows 11 etc I am glad I dumped Windows for Linux a little over 5 years ago now on my primary desktop PC as Mint is just more snappy without all of the bloat that runs on Windows. this is especially obvious the less CPU power your computer has as on a backup laptop I have with a under powered CPU (AMD E-300) Mint becomes usable noticeably faster than Windows does after booting up and installing updates on Mint is quicker to and you don't have to deal with forced reboots etc on Mint as with Mint you generally don't have to reboot after updates short of pretty much kernel ones or, if you have a NVIDIA GPU using the proper proprietary NVIDIA driver. even then it lets you choose when to reboot. in fact, on Linux Mint 21.2-Xfce I currently have my all-time record uptime of 180 days and counting (as I have not rebooted in over 180 days now on my primary use PC). so basically it will be a half of year without a reboot in about 3 days from now.

p.s. I was reading articles recently that shows that, with Win11 24H2 in the near future, will REQUIRE a certain CPU instruction, which on Intel CPU's basically means you need a CPU that supports 'SSE4.2' otherwise it flat out won't work. still, unless your CPU is fairly ancient it will still work as my i5-3550 should work as it supports SSE4.2 and it's from the year 2012 and I think Intel CPU's older than mine still have SSE4.2. on the AMD side of things I think they go back even further to something like 2006-2007 etc. basically, in short, as long as your CPU is not too old Win11 should continue to work for the foreseeable future.

Edited February 19 by ThaCrip

[dbminter]

I read a similar article about 24H2.  It indicated any CPU made within like the last 10 years supports that instruction set.

[matrix99]

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

Edited February 25 by matrix99

[ThaCrip]

On 2/24/2024 at 11:34 PM, matrix99 said:

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. 

Sorry for the late reply as I just noticed your post here a week later. anyways, I took a quick look online and I think I found the Reddit post you mentioned which is about 5 months ago. when I did my HWID stuff it was late October 2023. so less than 5 months ago when I did the HWID activation.

but for kicks I installed Windows 10 in a fresh QEMU/KVM VM a moment ago. then checked activation status, which is not activated as expected, then I tried that HWID method and... it worked ; you can clearly see it's activated... 'Activation Windows is activated with a digital license'. before that it was in red saying it was not activated etc.

but just to make sure the HWID activation method also still works on Win11, I tried Windows 11 on a fresh VM a moment ago and checked activation status and said not activated. then I ran the HWID method and it shows 'Windows is activated with a digital license'. just to do one last test to confirm it lasts... I completely deleted the VM's virtual hard drive and created one fresh, but used the same UUID when it was activated a moment ago on the previous VM's virtual hard drive, and... it still worked as you install Win11, skip over the activation part when it asks, then once you reach the desktop I checked activation status and it's activated with no further action needed on my end.

so in short... that HWID still works on Win10/11.

TIP: to dodge Microsoft's 'forced' Microsoft account junk just type in 'no at thankyou dot com' (with 'at' being '@' and 'dot' being '.') and then enter any random password (it does not matter what it is and you don't even need to remember it) and it will error shortly after that and allow a local account instead (which you then create with your own password like usual which you want to remember) as I saw that on another site and heard it worked but I never tried that until now and it worked exactly as they said.

Edited March 2 by ThaCrip

[dbminter]

Thanks for that Microsoft account workaround!  I knew it existed, but I couldn't recall what it was.  My setup is okay as it was a Windows 10 that I created back when local accounts were possible and upgraded to Windows 11.  But, on my next new PC, I wanted to create a local account, but couldn't remember how to do it.

[ThaCrip]

41 minutes ago, dbminter said:

Thanks for that Microsoft account workaround!

There are other methods to but that one seems to be the easiest/quickest.

but looking online a moment ago I see... https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set-windows-11-without-microsoft-account ; 'Method 1' is what I used months ago. but there 'Method 2' is pretty much same example I used but they just typed in 'admin' instead of the 'no at thankyou dot com' stuff I used. but you can see the pictures there on what it looks like as that's basically what it looked like when I did it. so I am starting to think if you can pretty much type anything there besides a real account and it will error out and allow local account creation given they used 'admin'.

[dbminter]

I think at one time, the bypass trick was even easier.  You just entered in no account name and password and repeated it several times in a row.  Each time, you'd be told to enter something, but after a handful of attempts, Windows setup would go to setting up a Local Account.  Microsoft quickly removed that impediment, of course.