Solved Cannot Join Insider inside a W11 Hyper-V VM

jimbo45 · Apr 4, 2024

SlicEnDicE said:
You people really have to learn how to read information or get better glasses.

I am sorry for your issues cereberus, I have not used Hyper-V in a while. I'll do that at some point...I'll let you know my findings once there...

My suspicion is that VMs are not allowed to join IP programme, because it produces false/irrelevant information for MS, so it is blocked. I could be wrong though...

One thing you could try though, is to enable nested virtualization for your Hyper-V machine...Virtualization support missing could be a showstopper...

Hi there
I've run VM's for ages -- never any problem in joining the insider program. I don't think there's any restriction on using a VM -- in fact it makes better sense in a lot of cases to USE a VM since insider builds are likely to be test or even pre alpha software - these builds aren't meant to be used as "every day" machines - even though lots do use these builds for that purpose.

Cheers
jimbo

SlicEnDicE · Apr 4, 2024

cereberus said:
Sorry forgot to mention that I assigned 6GB fixed as well.

Did you also try to increase the VM RAM to 8GB? VM requirements are a bit higher than on bare metal because of some instrumentation requirements and communication with the host.

LesFerch · Apr 4, 2024

spapakons said:
What if you download the Insider's build you want from UPP Dump and manually upgrade? Maybe this will work.

Yes, I've already done that, but I wanted to join the VM to Insider to get the latest updates. I had read that Microsoft restored the ability to drag and drop items via the address bar breadcrumbs, but I didn't have that feature. I thought it might appear with the VM joined to the Insider program. OTOH, maybe nobody has that feature yet? I also want to keep on eye on any changes related to VBScript (e.g. to see first-hand when it becomes an optional install).

LesFerch · Apr 4, 2024

SlicEnDicE said:
Did you also try to increase the VM RAM to 8GB? VM requirements are a bit higher than on bare metal because of some instrumentation requirements and communication with the host.

I'll try bumping up the RAM.

@jimbo45 Good to hear it works for you. You're using Hyper-V right? Same as @cereberus?

cereberus · Apr 4, 2024

SlicEnDicE said:
Did you also try to increase the VM RAM to 8GB? VM requirements are a bit higher than on bare metal because of some instrumentation requirements and communication with the host.

Well, my post was a while back - just tried it again, and all is working ok now - I suspect it was a bug fixed now.

SlicEnDicE · Apr 4, 2024

cereberus said:
Well, my post was a while back - just tried it again, and all is working ok now - I suspect it was a bug fixed now.

Sounds like it yeah, if it works again. Thanks for letting us know.

spapakons · Apr 4, 2024

LesFerch said:
Yes, I've already done that, but I wanted to join the VM to Insider to get the latest updates. I had read that Microsoft restored the ability to drag and drop items via the address bar breadcrumbs, but I didn't have that feature. I thought it might appear with the VM joined to the Insider program. OTOH, maybe nobody has that feature yet? I also want to keep on eye on any changes related to VBScript (e.g. to see first-hand when it becomes an optional install).

I might be wrong, but I think one needs to join Insiders in order to be able to install an Insider's version. If you have already installed one, then you should be able to download and install the rest Windows updates without joining. Except of course for upgrades to a newer version. You could upgrade without joining if you download the respective new ISO and bypass compatibility check.

LesFerch · Apr 4, 2024

spapakons said:
I might be wrong, but I think one needs to join Insiders in order to be able to install an Insider's version. If you have already installed one, then you should be able to download and install the rest Windows updates without joining. Except of course for upgrades to a newer version. You could upgrade without joining if you download the respective new ISO and bypass compatibility check.

I've been an Insider for a long time and I've done many Windows 11 bare metal builds with various Insider versions (Preview, Beta, Dev, Canary). This is just the first time I've tried to get a Windows 11 VM set up with an Insider build.

It may be a VMWare issue. The host machine meets Windows 11 requirements. When I get a moment, I'll try adjusting the RAM and I may also try Hyper-V.

cereberus · Apr 4, 2024

spapakons said:
I might be wrong, but I think one needs to join Insiders in order to be able to install an Insider's version.

No - if you have iso, you can install Insider version even without registering.

Bree · Apr 4, 2024

spapakons said:
I might be wrong, but I think one needs to join Insiders in order to be able to install an Insider's version.

cereberus said:
No - if you have iso, you can install Insider version even without registering.

True, I've done so many times. But to get further updates in Windows Update I find that the PC needs to join the appropriate Insider channel. Not being an Insider myself I use the OfflineInsiderEnroll script.

GitHub - abbodi1406/offlineinsiderenroll: OfflineInsiderEnroll - A script to enable access to the Windows Insider Program on machines not signed in with Microsoft Account

OfflineInsiderEnroll - A script to enable access to the Windows Insider Program on machines not signed in with Microsoft Account - abbodi1406/offlineinsiderenroll

github.com

LesFerch · Apr 4, 2024

Solved!

The problem, in my case, was that the VM only had one processor core. I just had to edit the VMX file and change cpuid.coresPerSocket = "1" to cpuid.coresPerSocket = "2"

spapakons · Apr 5, 2024

Exactly what I said. If you install using the ISO you don't have to join Insiders. Also you can upgrade to the next version using the ISO without joining. Of course it is not convenient having to download the ISO each time, so you eventually give up and join.

spapakons · Apr 5, 2024

LesFerch said:
Solved!

The problem, in my case, was that the VM only had one processor core. I just had to edit the VMX file and change cpuid.coresPerSocket = "1" to cpuid.coresPerSocket = "2"

Couldn't you just change the number of cores from Virtual machine settings? Why did you have to edit the VMX file manually?

LesFerch · Apr 5, 2024

spapakons said:
Couldn't you just change the number of cores from Virtual machine settings? Why did you have to edit the VMX file manually?

The settings, in the free Workstation Player, have an option for number of processors, but not cores. Strange.

spapakons · Apr 5, 2024

LesFerch said:
The settings, in the free Workstation Player, have an option for number of processors, but not cores. Strange.

I thought you were using VMWare Workstation, not Player. There, as far as I remember, you can change both the number of processors and cores from settings. No need to manually edit the file.

SlicEnDicE · Apr 5, 2024

My experience with VMWare Player is that it's very limited in what you can do and thus was useless for me. Could not use it for server or software development and integration testing at all. Workstation on the other hand was very good. This is a very long time ago though and things may have changed.

The issue is not in the running but in VM creation.

spapakons · Apr 5, 2024

I am not familiar with Hyper-V, but I like VMWare because it has features others don't, such as use the serial and parallel ports in the virtual machine. I have an old parallel Iomega ZIP-100 drive. Up to Windows 7 I could manually install the Windows XP 32-bit or Windows XP x64 drivers (if I was running Windows 7 64-bit) and make it work. In Windows 8 and newer something changed in the parallel port drivers and the system could not detect it anymore, so I could not make it work by installing drivers. The only solution to keep using it was to use the parallel port in a virtual machine. So I created a Windows XP virtual machine and gave it control of the parallel port. It worked fine, like XP was running natively. VirtualBox and Microsoft Virtual PC didn't allow using the serial or parallel port in the guest. Only VMWare Workstation has this feature and many others. You can even tweak VMWare Workstation to run Mac OS! I have successfully ran Mac OS 10.8 until a stupid upgrade made it unbootable.

cereberus · Apr 5, 2024

spapakons said:
I am not familiar with Hyper-V, but I like VMWare because it has features others don't, such as use the serial and parallel ports in the virtual machine. I have an old parallel Iomega ZIP-100 drive. Up to Windows 7 I could manually install the Windows XP 32-bit or Windows XP x64 drivers (if I was running Windows 7 64-bit) and make it work. In Windows 8 and newer something changed in the parallel port drivers and the system could not detect it anymore, so I could not make it work by installing drivers. The only solution to keep using it was to use the parallel port in a virtual machine. So I created a Windows XP virtual machine and gave it control of the parallel port. It worked fine, like XP was running natively. VirtualBox and Microsoft Virtual PC didn't allow using the serial or parallel port in the guest. Only VMWare Workstation has this feature and many others. You can even tweak VMWare Workstation to run Mac OS! I have successfully ran Mac OS 10.8 until a stupid upgrade made it unbootable.

You could have started a new thread rather than hijacking this thread which has nothing to do with vmware?

jimbo45 · Apr 6, 2024

Hi there

@spapakons

The problem was whether or not you could join the windows insider program from WITHIN a Windows - which you can -- the thread wasn'rtmeant to be about the merits of VMware or otherwise - which just obfuscates the original problem.

It maybe that vmware has a problem with allowing a Windows Guest to join the Windows insider problem - but even if it has (which it doesn't BTW) it still doesn't address the OP's problem or assertation that a Windows GUEST can't join the insider program -- clearly false.

Cheers
jimbo