Hey guys,
I use my laptop with a Windows 11 / Linux Mint dual-boot system.
Since I actually use Linux Mint 98% of the time, I wanted to ask if it is still necessary to do the system and security updates for Windows 11 as long as Windows is not needed?
It seems the other answers already covered what you needed to know, so I won’t be redundant here. Pro tip: if you rarely use your Windows installation, you might consider moving it into a virtual machine that you can conveniently boot from within your running Linux system. This way you wouldn’t need the dual boot anymore, which might be desirable for various reasons.
But if the Windows has an OEM license, it can’t be used inside a VM, as far as I understand.
You can just use an activation script. Even though technically Windows won’t be activated using the OEM license in a VM, the license is still present on the machine. So legally Windows is still licensed. To get around the thing not automatically activating, an activation script is an easy fix.
This is a good activation script:
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Legally, it’s probably not. The OEM desktop license probably doesn’t cover virtualization.
Legally it is. On their piracy audits Microsoft only counts the amount of licenses bought and the amount of computers using Windows. They do not care about how it is activated per each computer. They even offer big companies a way to host their own key management system to keep track of licenses they need to buy easier internally.