virtualbox.org

Hey!

So I am about to upgrade my pc soon. This upgrade includes a new motherboard I assumed I need to buy a new copy of windows since the one I have right now came with my fujitsu desktop pc.
So too the point, I have installed my recovery cd once in to the virtual box and it worked out great even tho I believed my windows cd was bound to my host motherboard. Could it be that it stil is and that the cd somehow reads my host motherboard bios? Or is the cd "indipendent"? Does virtual box fully emulate a motherboard or does it use the host motherboard to some extent?

I would be really thankfull for an answer and hopefully my Swedish mothertongue doesn´t make my spelling to bad.

VirtualBox provides its own bios. Not to say that what you are doing is actually legal because most OEM software is meant to run on the manufactures equipment and some are not to be virtualized, but I would not know in your case.

Perryg wrote:VirtualBox provides its own bios. Not to say that what you are doing is actually legal because most OEM software is meant to run on the manufactures equipment and some are not to be virtualized, but I would not know in your case.

Ok, thank you for the quick reply! Whether what I´m doeing is legal or not I will look in to!

Not all OEM versions of Windows are locked to the BIOS, or to any other hardware signature. Most often not in fact. Only a few royalty vendors in the past have tried that, Dell being the best known example. HP allegedly did it for a while as well, but not recently.

As to the legalities. AIUI your license was bundled with that PC, not to a specific component of it, and upgrading your PC is a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Replacing the motherboard will certainly mean you need to reactivate (even if reinstallation didn't make that necessary anyway), but that does not mean you are doing anything wrong, and I doubt very much you will have a problem.

What would be wrong is using the same license on another host while you continue to use it on your original host. And practically speaking, as soon as you try to activate the 2nd instance is when problems would start to arise.

If VBox provides it's own BIOS, then what key enters it? Typically F1 or F2.

The VirtualBox BIOS doesn't have or need a user interface: all the settings are in the VM recipe.