Virtualbox, Linux host, Win7 VM needs reactivating every time I reinstall Linux

[mikeymikec]

Is this normal? Since 2018 I've gone through a few Linux distros/versions (Lubuntu 18.04, Lubuntu 20.04, Kubuntu 20.04, now Mint 21 Cinnamon). I have a Win7 VM set up for easy access to a few apps, and when I migrate from one Linux install to the next I tell Virtualbox to export all the VMs. However, I think every time I've done this (on the same underlying hardware every time), Win7 needs reactivating even though I would have thought that all the settings being exported by VB would have presented Windows with the same 'hardware' every time?

I telephone activated Windows this time (successfully) because MS was trying to peddle a new Windows licence, so it's not the end of the world, but I'd rather avoid it if I can because I assume at some point Microsoft will decide I've attempted to reactivate Windows too many times.

I also have an XP VM which (certainly on this occasion) did not need reactivating.

 

[crashtech]

That's interesting. I don't have much insight into this, but am interested to see if anyone does. Perhaps inadvertently going between versions of Vbox is what does it, but even that should not, in theory.

 

[mv2devnull]

On RHEL-based systems:

The /etc/machine-id file contains the unique machine ID of the local system that is set during installation or boot (from a random source).
...
The machine ID does not change based on local or network configuration or when hardware is replaced.

I wonder whether (1) Ubuntu/Mint have that too and (2) vbox presents it to guests, rather than raw hardware identifiers. If the latter is true, then provisioning known ID during install would solve the issue.