Interesting story. It would seem that the IP address may have had
something to do with the determination as to whether or not a site
install is valid. While this is not necessarily specific to
VirtualBox, there may be some aspects of the host's hardware used in
the virtual machine's information collection.
I understand that it is somewhat unknown as to what elements are used
when Microsoft validates any given installation, but it would be
interesting to discover more about what criteria are used in
determining what is valid and what is or could cause an invalidation.
(I have heard of people changing out video cards, hard drives or other
devices having to re-activate their Windows XP installation.)
If someone were to put forward the notion of using Linux as the host
OS, and Windows as the guest(s), it might be valid in that the
connection between the host and guest might be different with regard
to sharing specific details about the hardware of the host. (But if
it's exactly the same, then the suggestion would be worthless.)
This might be quite relevant to further development of VirtualBox in
that if it is details of the host bleeding into the guest that causes
an invalidation of the host OS when using an invalid guest, then
perhaps those details need to be insulated or at least maskable in
some way by the user. The very "portability" of a virtual machine is
compromised by such things if this were the case.
An experiment should be performed. If possible, try repeating the
steps you went through, but put the invalid OS on a separate machine
entirely or under an entirely separate host. But do the activation
from within your same network. If the cause of your Windows
activation was association with the IP address of an invalid
installation, then there would be no escaping the issue. (This is
especially true if your network connection is NATed rather than
bridged.)
Quoting Fernando Cassia <fcas...@gmail.com>:
This is strange...
I am running WinXP SP2 here (the XP Home that came pre-installed in my
Gateway 7422 notebook).
I was in a rush to install another XP virtualized to run some
"password cracker" downloaded from one of those "security sites" with
unknown reputation. So instead of risking to infect my host OS with
some trojan, I created a Virtualbox VM. I used a XP Pro CD I had lying
around, but since I didn´t want the legit cd-key invaldated due to
the additional installation, I googled for a XP cd-key and entered it
in the XP install screens.
At some point during the install (i don´t remember if during the
install or right after the first boot) it warned that the serial
number or cd was was not valid -or known pirated number I really don´t
remember- and that activation was needed. So it put the XP guest in a
21-day countdown.
I ran the "password cracker" on the VM, then closed the VM and erased it.
When I rebooted the host system, my copy of XP became "de-activated".
I had to go through the WPA activation over the phone with Microsoft´s
local branch. Luckily, it all worked, and my system was active 30
minutes later.
Now the questions that come to mind are:
1. could it be possible that some service in the host OS was contacted
from Microsoft.com and the host OS "de-activated" because of what
happened in the guest OS?.
2. Is there a way to pass the host OS activation to the guest OS?
3. If I use a legit XP cd-key (that I have but never installed it in a
VM) would that invalidate my legit XP installation?.
4. What is Microsoft´s position with regards to this? Do they allow
running the same Windows license in a VM? Or is one supposed to
purchase an additional license just to run virtualized?.
5. Doesn´t Microsoft offer any ready-to-run XP appliance (even if with
a time limit) that we could import into XP?.
Thanks for any thoughts.
FC
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