Other • Re: Run Windows 11, inside Linux, on a Pi (no emulation necessary)

Yes. And you can know too if you'd read the EULA provided along with the *official* ISO images from MSFT's website. But I reckon it's more fun to keep flooding each and every Windows thread with legal fearmongering. That can, again, be answered by reading the terms of the thing you download, or perhaps even hire a lawyer to do it for you.

Got a link to them? And to the corresponding documents for the license keys?

As for hiring a lawyer, that'll still only get you one opinion. Nobody actually knows (no, not even MS) and can know until a case has been through the full court process including appeals.

What do you mean by "no, not even MS"? What is actually the point here?

I meant, as should have been obvious, that until a case goes to court nobody knows whether a particular software license will be upheld or not. Not even the company, organisation, or person who wrote that license.

Most licensors rely on online activation or threatening letters for enforcement.

They provide ISO images on their website for you to download. You can then buy a regular license key to activate any architecture (though it is free to use for evaluation purposes). I don't get what this has to do with court cases? It's really not rocket science.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... ows11arm64
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/iso
https://www.microsoft.com/content/dam/m ... nglish.pdf

Windows 11 disk images (ISO files) are now available for Windows 11 on Arm. You can download the latest Windows 11 Arm64 ISO at Download Windows 11. Just as with x64 ISO files, you can use Arm64 ISO files to create virtual machines, run Windows Setup from within a running copy of Windows, or create bootable media for installing Windows.

All this aside, it's beyond ridiculous to think they would go after such projects that in the end only benefit them: more Windows users and more licenses bought.

Nintendo. Not MS but they have a reputation for shutting down everything that might even tangentially infringe on their copyrights.

They are *well aware* of these projects and have helped directly with various issues before.

They may be and they may have done but AFAIK they've not helped with this one.* Again, though, I'd like to see some supporting evidence of that claim.

But it's not the the legality of the downloads that are a grey area anyway. It's the legitimacy of the license key BVM uses. As far as I can tell it's not a retail key, it's a KMS key. KMS keys are intended for use in large organisations which have their own verification servers and where individual PCs do not have internet access so cannot verify against MS servers.**

No, I don't know how BVM handles this. Nor do I know what MS t&c are for this type of license though the link below suggests they are not intended for random members of the public and single machine setups.

IIRC it is possible to get a license key for Windows ARM through the windows insider program but also IIRC that is intended for application testing and development and not for general computing use.*** Sorry but I don't have the link to hand.

And no, I'm not a windows sysadmin.

Yes, I tried BVM. No, I'm not continuing to use it. Not just because licensing is unclear. It's an interesting diversion but a low spec NUC or secondhand x86 box still gives better performance for Windows, especially for x86 only applications.

Use it or not. That's up to you. If you don't work in the relevant MS department you know no more about their knowledge and attitudes than I do.

*: Botspot would have mentioned it on the github repo and, last I checked, he hasn't.
**: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... Cwindows81 and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windo ... reate-host
***: but how would they know?

Statistics: Posted by thagrol — Sat Mar 08, 2025 1:22 am

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