How to activate a windows 10 digital lisence in oracle virtual box on lubuntu

Question

So I have a windows 10 digital key lying around from my old pc that broke down years ago and thought I'd try to make a windows 10 virtual box since there's a few programs I like to run that don't work with wine but are lightweight. However when I try to activate through the method of troubleshoot-> hardware change - this is the device I'm using now -> activate it denies me with the following message. Unable to activate windows we cannot reactivate windows on this device.

I'm using oracles virtual box on lubuntu 18.04, I'm willing to try another VM if it's free and you think it'll work.

here is a screenshot of the error:

Answer 1

Upgrades are tied to the pc. You cannot reuse a license from an upgrade. You can only use it on that pc itself.

When you perform the upgrade, a new Windows 10 key is created. It is stored in the databases at Microsoft, together with a Hardware ID.

The Hardware ID is generated based on component ID's from things like your processor, motherboard and harddisk.

This is why changing a component in your computer may suddenly turn your computer in an deactivated state. Microsoft will allow hardware changes which requires revalidation of the key, but they will personally check that it is the same computer. When you run it from a virtual machine, the hardware will literally say Virtual somewhere, and that is against their usage policy, so they will not allow you to activate the license.