virtualbox.org

I have Virtualbox (4.1.18) running on an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS host on which I have a Windows 7 x64 Ultimate running.

Each time that I update the Virtualbox software (or even the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack only) the license of my windows 7 copy (invalidates) deactivates.

This means I have to phone Microsoft to get a new activation key for my genuine Windows copy which is highly unpleasant (also I do not know if they will be giving me a new key next time as I upgrade the Virtual box (Extension Pack) software already 5 times and each time I have to perform the phone reactivation

What should I do to prevent this.
Does the upgrade change the Machine or HardDrive UID's in the XML's or is it the signature backed into the software itself that changes and will make it impossible to update the Virtualbox software after windows guest OS activation in the furture.
Thanks for any help/info

Moving to Using Virtualbox as this has nothing to do with the guests themsevles per say.

This is quite an unusal behaviour - I never had to reactivate any of my Windows guests after upgrading, which I performed several times and on several hosts. I also never heard such behaviour before.
Also, Upgrading Virtualbox only udate the binaries files, but doesn't touch the configuration items (including UUIDs) for a VM that would actually trigger a Windows reactivation.

What do you EXACTLY do when you perform an upgrade? How do you run the update? where do you get your installation files? What is your Host OS? From which version to which version do you upgrade? Do you change host or hardware while doing the upgrade?
Side question : Any reason for not switching to 4.2.x branch?

Guess: this user has used the same CD-key for a physical PC and/or one or more VMs. The MS activation server stores only the most recent activation hardware signature. Windows Update does a license validation check - poof.

If correct, this is a licensing issue to be taken up with Microsoft, it has nothing to do with VirtualBox. Installing the same Windows CD-key on multiple physical PCs would have exactly the same effect.

mpack wrote:Guess: this user has used the same CD-key for a physical PC and/or one or more VMs. The MS activation server stores only the most recent activation hardware signature. Windows Update does a license validation check - poof.

If correct, this is a licensing issue to be taken up with Microsoft, it has nothing to do with VirtualBox. Installing the same Windows CD-key on multiple physical PCs would have exactly the same effect.

No this liscense was especially bought for this VM and has never been installed on any phisical machine or any other machine (even VM) whatsoever

noteirak wrote:Moving to Using Virtualbox as this has nothing to do with the guests themsevles per say.

This is quite an unusal behaviour - I never had to reactivate any of my Windows guests after upgrading, which I performed several times and on several hosts. I also never heard such behaviour before.
Also, Upgrading Virtualbox only udate the binaries files, but doesn't touch the configuration items (including UUIDs) for a VM that would actually trigger a Windows reactivation.

What do you EXACTLY do when you perform an upgrade? How do you run the update? where do you get your installation files? What is your Host OS? From which version to which version do you upgrade? Do you change host or hardware while doing the upgrade?
Side question : Any reason for not switching to 4.2.x branch?

For the Virtualbox itself it comes with the updates in Ubuntu itself (There is one standing now which I unchecks each time I upgrade because I know I will have to reactivate)
For the extension pack I download it from within the Virtualbox notice and after the download completes it ask open with Virtualbox which installs the extension pack

noteirak wrote:Moving to Using Virtualbox as this has nothing to do with the guests themsevles per say.

This is quite an unusal behaviour - I never had to reactivate any of my Windows guests after upgrading, which I performed several times and on several hosts. I also never heard such behaviour before.
Also, Upgrading Virtualbox only udate the binaries files, but doesn't touch the configuration items (including UUIDs) for a VM that would actually trigger a Windows reactivation.

What do you EXACTLY do when you perform an upgrade?
How do you run the update? (either the Ubuntu Software update installs it (originally I istalled it following the description in the section "Debian-based Linux distributions" on www_virtualbox.org_wiki_Linux_Downloads (Underscores must be replaced by slashes)
where do you get your installation files? From either the Ubuntu software update's or www_virtualbox.org_wiki_Linux_Downloads
What is your Host OS? Ubuntu 12.04 TLS (was marked)
From which version to which version do you upgrade? (Any numerical lower) version to the next
Do you change host or hardware while doing the upgrade? No never was anything changed on the hardware
Side question : Any reason for not switching to 4.2.x branch? No I like to keep the system up to date. Do it with the other systems also

Virtualbox from Ubuntu's repos is not supported here, as we cannot know what they changed and the impact of it on Virtualbox.
Unless you totally remove the Ubuntu version and exclusivly use the version from the official version, we cannot do much.
I am also under the impression that you mix version from Ubuntu with Virtualbox official items, which is a _very_ bad idea.

If you do not want to replace your installation with the official binaries, you will have to ask the Ubuntu people for support.
If you switch to the Official installation, ensure you take the latest version - 4.2.12 at time of writting - and see if it helps.

As for how I upgrade, I simply uninstall a previous version and reinstall the new one without changing anything else, and never had any issue.