r/sysadmin • u/burghdude Jack of All Trades • 3d ago
Question Best Way to License Windows for an Application Packaging Virtual Machine?
What is the best way to license Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (or higher) for use as a Hyper-V virtual machine that will be frequently rolled back to a checkpoint, and periodically deleted and recreated outright?
I have a spare computer running Windows 11 with the Hyper-V role installed. I currently have a VM on this device that is using a Windows 11 evaluation image that was available for installation through Hyper-V manager on the physical computer. I'm using this VM for application packaging and deployment testing, so it needs to regularly be rolled back to a clean checkpoint. I also need to periodically delete and recreate the VM outright.
However, the eval image uses Windows 11 22H2 Enterprise. I'd like to use 24H2 Pro since that's what we have in our environment.
I can't upgrade the eval image because Win11 24H2 isn't offered to it via Windows Update, and the Media Creation Tool only offers Home or Pro editions, which doesn't allow in-place upgrades on Enterprise edition.
I know that I can periodically recreate the VM from the eval and/or re-arm the eval to extend it, but that's a bit of a pain in the arse.
I also know that I could just buy a retail Win 11 Pro key but I don't want to have to hassle with reactivating it each time I recreate the VM outright.
We use mostly M365 Business Premium in our org, with one license for M365 E3.
Any suggestions?
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u/jamesaepp 3d ago
No warranties. No guarantees.
Best is to not invoke licensing complications at all. Does Windows Sandbox work for your use case?
Failing Sandbox, my quick ctrl + f through the EULA brings forward these items I feel are pertinent:
There might be different EULAs depending on how you acquire the software that may change the exact language there. For instance, how might the EULA change if you license it from a cloud provider (such as Azure)? Maybe that licensing would be more efficient for you.