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I use Linux as my daily driver, and have just installed Windows 10 to a new physical disk in my PC for dual booting. For a while, I've used Windows 7 through a VirtualBox image I have mounted over iSCSI1.
Now I have two different Windows environments and that's very frustrating. I would love to abandon the Windows 7 VM and access the Windows 10 installation directly through VirtualBox for convenience, but without losing the ability to drop down to dual boot when I need raw-metal performance.
Is it possible to boot an existing installation of Windows 10 on dedicated physical media (internal SATA3 SSD) through VirtualBox without losing the ability to dual boot as well?
If it makes matters more complicated (or impossible) it's worth noting that the Windows 10 SSD is protected with FDE via VeraCrypt.
1I would love it if it were possible, but I haven't found a way yet. Apart from the problem of running a VM with a physical disc, there are two aspects of switching between hard and virtual boot. (1) There will be major driver reconfiguration whenever you switch run environments. (2) As a corollary, Windows will probably need licence reactivation on each switch: if this is even possible, licensing will almost certainly complain after a couple of reactivations. What you can do is create a virtual disc from a physical installation, but again licensing will be a likely problem. – AFH – 2017-01-25T19:06:39.723
You may do better to consider running the Linux installation in a Windows VM: at least it will avoid licence difficulties. – AFH – 2017-01-25T19:09:19.890
@AFH The license problem can be solved by cloning the host hardware uuid and the disc controller serial ids into the VM. It enables to run Windows once from VM, and once directly (although the m$ licensing still doesn't allow to use multiple installations with the same product key concurrently, so it can be done exclusively in the asked configuration). – peterh - Reinstate Monica – 2017-01-26T16:19:49.833
@peterh - Thanks: I didn't know that UUID cloning was sufficient for Windows licensing. There remains the driver reconfiguration problem on switching. I shall experiment with your answer when I have time. – AFH – 2017-01-26T16:36:59.343