I was wrong. This particular guy doesn't have Hyper-v. It turns out he's an Apple fan and really was trying to run the software in a Windows VM.
Still, I'd be interested in knowing if I can expect Hyper-v to be a problem.
How to deal with Hyper-v?
I had a user activation failed because TurboActivate detected it was running in a VM. I don't have the details yet, but I know the guy in question is not very tech savvy, so I'm doubting it was a deliberate choice to use a VM. I'm guessing he's got himself a new PC running Win10, and the problem will be Hyper-v.
Any suggestions how to approach Hyper-v? I would like to tie the activation to a single physical PC, but I don't want to have this as a recurring and growing future problem. Given that its Microsoft - and they don't want Office etc to be ripped off - they probably provide some kind of physical machine signature.
I'm not sure what the question is. TurboActivate detects virtual machines, and lets you make a choice based on that accurate detection. Hyper-V is a type of virtual machine (even the "base OS" or "host" is running under the virtual machine).
We recommend following these instructions (forcing customers to use TurboFloat if they're inside a VM): http://wyday.com/limelm/help/vm-hypervisor-licensing/
I guess the question was effectively whether TurboActivate differentiates between type-1 and type-2 hypervisors, since I would expect the former to cooperate more towards calculating a physical machine signature than the latter. I guess you're saying that it doesn't. So, we can expect Hyper-v to become an increasing problem in future Windows versions.
Thanks for the TurboFloat suggestion. I have to say that at this moment I know nothing about TurboFloat, but I'll do some reading.
I feel I should mention just FYI: I moderate the VirtualBox forums, so I'm quite familiar with VMs.
chrispadfieldI've just had this - someone tried to activate on a laptop that happens to have Hyper-V installed because they use VMs. They are not installing within a VM but on the root machine itself.
Why is the licensing system disabling that? Disabling from within a VM we want; but why is it disabling when on the bare metal machine?
>> "They are not installing within a VM but on the root machine itself.">> "[...] but why is it disabling when on the bare metal machine?"
That's the thing about Hyper-V, even the "base OS" is running under the virtual machine. It's not "bare metal". They're running on the VM. Hyper-V works differently than say VMWare Workstation or VirtualBox.
You have a few options:
1. Allow VM activations either just for that product key or for all generated product keys. (Not recommended).
2. Tell that user to disable Hyper-V. Hyper-V isn't enabled by default, but it does get enabled if a person installs certain developer tools (like Visual Studio).
3. Or follow our recommendations for selling to customers running under VMs: http://wyday.com/limelm/help/vm-hypervisor-licensing/
We give you lots of choices. I'd recommend 2 or 3, but it's up to you.