Can I build a VM from a "raw" unused Win10 image?

[MrPete]

I've got a brand new HP Z2 workstation, with Win10 preinstalled on the NVMe.
I am going to immediately reconfigure it as a ProxMox host.
I'd like to use the Win10 license as a VM.

My question: can I extract the Win10 partition(s) onto a separate HDD (using bootable PartEd), load up PVE, then somehow convert the Win10 image into a VM template and install Win10 as a VM?

I've seen various tutorials (esp for VMware) for converting "live" (installed) Windows as VM... but this would be a pre-install Windows.

My thought: doing it this way just might be cleaner? But never having done it, perhaps I'm just wasting my time. Thoughts appreciated.

 

[oguz]

hi,

one way would be to use something like clonezilla live CD to make a copy of your physical host, and then restore it onto a newly made VM in your PVE server [0]

another is to take out the disk where your windows is installed; install PVE on the machine with a separate disk, and then passthrough your disk to a new VM.

though i'm not sure if your windows license would be still active (i assume it would, but not sure what they check), so you might have to reactivate it.

[0]: https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Migration_of_servers_to_Proxmox_VE#Clonezilla_Live_CDs