Installing Expired Windows Technical Preview in VirtualBox

While cleaning my hard disk files, I found the first Windows 10 Technical Preview (Build 9841) ISO file. I remember I was quite excited when the technical preview came out because it is the first Windows edition that you can see what Microsoft is working on the way, rather than a nearly-complete developer preview like in Windows 7 or 8.

So naturally, I tried to boot it up in Virtual Box and see how much has been changed:

Hmm... What happened?

After some research, apparently, Technical Preview Builds of Windows will have an expiration date. When the date is over Windows will attempt to disable the installation or log in.

This checking process is using the BIOS date comparing to the expiration date. Fortunately, VirtualBox allows changing the BIOS date with the command line.

First, we need to disable the time sync with the host machine:

VBoxManage setextradata "Windows 10 9841" "VBoxInternal/Devices/VMMDev/0/Config/GetHostTimeDisabled" 1

Note that "Windows 10 9841" is the name of the VM, you should change it to whatever your VM name in VirtualBox is.

Second, we need to get the offset of the desired time. In my case, I will set the BIOS date to 1 October 2014, as this is the date when Build 9841 was released.

Using Powershell:

([datetime]"01/10/2014" - [datetime]::Now)

Output:

Days              : -2782
Hours             : -15
Minutes           : -37
Seconds           : -1
Milliseconds      : -339
Ticks             : -2404210213397524
TotalDays         : -2782.65070995084
TotalHours        : -66783.6170388201
TotalMinutes      : -4007017.02232921
TotalSeconds      : -240421021.339752
TotalMilliseconds : -240421021339.752

Note down the TotalMilliseconds, or in my case, -240421021339.752

We can then now modify the BIOS date in the VM, using the command:

VBoxManage modifyvm "Windows 10 9841" --biossystemtimeoffset  "-240421021339"

Note that the decimal value in TotalMilliseconds must be removed, so -240421021339.752 become -240421021339.

After setting the BIOS, we can now launch the VM again and we successfully get into the Installation screen!

Install as normal then we can see how much different is compare to now!

The desktop icon "Welcome to Tech Preview" is just a link to https://insider.windows.com. This is kinda funny because as of the time writing, the technical preview is now Windows 11.

So we are looking at First Windows 11 Technical Preview on a First Windows 10 Technical Preview.