Need to open a VMDK file in VirtualBox? This article will show you how to setup and use a VMDK virtual machine file with VirtualBox. This particular tutorial is demonstrated on a Mac, but using a VMDK with VirtualBox this way should work the same on Windows and Linux too.
VMDK is short for Virtual Machine Disk, and VMDK files can be created by VMWare, VirtualBox, Parallels, and other virtualization software. You may have noticed that you can’t simply open a VMDK virtual machine file directly with VirtualBox, nor can you drag and drop it to launch. Instead you’ll create a new virtual machine and use that as the disk, using the steps outlined below.
How to Open a VMDK File with VirtualBox on Mac, Windows, Linux
Open the VirtualBox application, then choose “New” to create a new virtual machine
Give the new virtual machine a name and set the type, OS version, RAM, and then click to choose “Use an existing virtual hard disk file” and click the folder icon to navigate the file system
Click “Add” to add a virtual hard disk file
Navigate to and select the VMDK file and choose “Open”
Confirm the VMDK drive is selected then select “Choose”
Now choose “Create” to create the new virtual machine using the VMDK file
Click “Start” at the VirtualBox Manager screen to boot the VMDK virtual machine
Once you click Start the virtual machine will boot using the VMDK file you selected as the virtual hard disk file.
VMDK files can be made of just about any operating system, including Windows, Linux, MacOS and/or Mac OS X. The VMDK virtual machine files are often made available or transferred around as pre-built configurations of operating systems, making it easy to use or test the same setup on multiple machines or by multiple people.
This is probably somewhat obvious, but if you move the location of the VMDK file the VirtualBox machine will no longer boot until the VMDK file is located again.
If you’re finished using the VMDK file and the related virtual machine, you can delete that VM from VirtualBox like removing any other VM.
You might be wondering if it’s possible to convert a VMDK file to VHD or VDI or another virtual machine disk format, and the answer is yes though it’s not nearly as easy as converting an ISO to VDI, and instead you’ll have to rely on this free tool from Microsoft that runs in Windows.
Have you ever needed to find a Windows product key? Maybe you’re troubleshooting a Windows PC, planning on re-installing Windows 10 in a virtual machine, installing on a PC, or installing into Boot Camp on a Mac, or maybe you have a PC computer running Windows that needs the Windows product key for some reason or another.
This article will show you three different ways for how to find a Windows product key directly from Windows itself on the computer, without having to rely on tracking down the Windows product key card from a box, email, or COA. So if you lost or misplaced any of those, don’t worry, the methods covered will work to retrieve the Windows product key directly from Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, or even Linux. And yes if you’re running Windows in Boot Camp on a Mac or in a VM, these tricks work there too.
This article is obviously aimed at users who need their Windows product key for whatever reason. Nonetheless, it’s worth remembering that you can download the Windows 10 ISOdirectly from Microsoft for free, and you can then use that ISO to create a Windows 10 installer drive for Boot Camp, install Windows 10 into VirtualBox (also free), into Parallels or VMWare, or even for installing on PC hardware. And no, you do not need to activate in order to install Windows 10 from the ISO, nor do you need a product key, but of course there are some limitations with running Windows without activation, of which you can always activate later if needed. Anyway, assuming you have an authorized version of Windows running somewhere and you need the product key, read on to discover three ways to retrieve it.
How to Get the Windows Product Key via cmd in Windows
The simplest way to find the Windows Product Key license is to turn to a privileged command prompt in Windows and execute a command that retrieves the software license product key.
From Windows, open a new Administrator Command Prompt window and then enter the following syntax:
wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey
Hit Enter / Return for the Windows product key to be displayed, it is a 25 character alphanumeric string in the format of the following:
XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
That’s it. You can get the Windows product key on nearly any Windows installation using this method.
How to Find Windows Product License Key via Powershell
You can also retrieve a Windows product key from Windows Power Shell with the following command string, entered into a privileged command prompt:
powershell "(Get-WmiObject -query ‘select * from SoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey"
Regardless of which method you use, the product key will be the same (assuming it’s being run on the same installation of Windows anyway).
How to Get Windows Product Key via Linux
You can also get the Windows Product Key from Linux by entering the following privileged command:
Executed correctly with the proper syntax and you’ll find your Windows product key immediately reported back.
This handy linux trick was found on Twitter by @brandonprry and is perfect for users who dual boot Windows and Linux on a computer. And no, in case you were wondering, the linux specific trick does not seem to work from a Mac running Windows in Boot Camp, but if you do know of a method to retrieve a Windows product key used in Boot Camp from Mac OS, share it with us in the comments below.
You can use any of the three methods outlined above to find the Windows product key, obviously two are specific to Windows while the third applies to Linux. There are other options available as well, including using Windows specific utilities like ProduKey which can reveal a Windows product key as well as a Microsoft Office product key, which is quite helpful if you’ve misplaced those as well.
Where can I find the Windows product key usually?
Aside from using the above methods to find a Windows Product Key, the typical places you’d find the 25 digit license key code are; on the COA sticker, in the physical software box, or in an email if you bought Windows digitally.
As you may already know, the most typical place for the Windows product key to be found is on the shiny COA (Certificate of Authenticity) sticker adhered to the enclosure of a Windows PC, whether it’s a laptop or desktop, but maybe that sticker was lost, peeled off, damaged, or never included at all.
If you bought a physical copy of Windows, the product key is typically included in the box itself on a piece of paper, but of course that can be lost or misplaced.
And if you bought Windows digitally, you typically get the product key in an email instead.
But if you’re running Windows in a virtual machine, or on a Mac in Boot Camp, or on a home-built PC or even some laptops, the Certificate of Authenticity sticker for Windows that includes the product key will not be available, and perhaps you long ago lost the email or box containing the product key itself. Or maybe you’re on the road and just don’t have the materials with you, or access to the email or other methods of obtaining the license key. This happens fairly often, regardless of how, where, and why you’re using Windows, which is why it can be so helpful to retrieve the product key directly from software.
Obviously if you don’t use Windows then this will be of no use to you, but Windows remains the most common operating system in corporate, government, and educational environments, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. So even if you’re a heavy Mac user or Linux user, you may still be working with Windows from time-to-time, and this can apply to you as well.
Steam makes it easy to acquire and manage a great game library on a Mac, Windows PC, or Linux machine. But if you find that you’re not playing a particular game much anymore, or if you just need to free up some disk storage space to make room for something else, you might want to uninstall the game from the computer and remove it from Steam.
This tutorial will show you how to uninstall Steam games on Mac OS, and the process is also identical for deleting games from Steam on a Windows PC or Linux too.
You may have already noticed this, but deleting a game from Steam is different from the simple Move to Trash method involved in how most users uninstall Mac applications, because the games themselves are stored elsewhere on the Mac rather than in the Applications folder. But it’s still easy. To properly uninstall a Steam game, you’ll actually be using the Steam application itself. Because Steam is a cross-platform compatible app you can use this method to uninstall any Steam game from any Mac, Windows PC, or even Linux.
How to Uninstall Games from Steam on Mac, Windows Linux
We’ll show you how to uninstall games from Steam and remove them from your computer, thereby freeing up whatever disk space they were taking up. This approach will delete the game locally, but it will not delete the game from the Steam account.
Open the “Steam” application
Click the “Library” tab at the top of the Steam app and locate the game you want to uninstall from Steam
Right-click (or hold CONTROL and click) on the game you want to delete from the computer and uninstall
Choose “Delete Local Content” from the drop-down menu that appears
Confirm that you want to delete the game from the computer and uninstall the local game files by clicking “Delete”
Wait a few moments for the game to uninstall from Steam and be deleted from the hard drive
You can repeat that process with multiple games if you’re trying to free up additional disk space, or if you simply want to thin out your Steam game library, or remove a distraction from your computer.
When you delete a large Steam game you will see a little “uninstalling” message alongside the title in your Steam Library until it completes. You can see this being demonstrated in the screenshots when uninstalling Civilization.
This uninstall method works on every OS that Steam is compatible with, whether it’s MacOS / Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux.
Uninstalling Steam Games doesn’t remove them from a Steam account
Note that by uninstalling a game from Steam, the game will be deleted locally but it will not be removed from your Steam account. This means that you still own the game with that Steam account and it can still be played, but to play it again in the future it must be re-downloaded again.
Uninstalling the Steam application itself
And for Mac users, if after you have uninstalled games from Steam you want to remove Steam itself as well, you can uninstall the app the same way you would any other on the Mac by dragging it to the Trash from the Applications directory. But doing so will not delete the Steam games, or the Steam game files, or any other Steam data. Thus you’d want to uninstall the games first along with deleting the game data, then delete the Steam app itself.
If you’re deleting Steam games to free up disk space, or you discovered an enormous Steam folder that was long forgotten when using a tool like OmniDiskSweeper to recover disk space, you could also consider using a secondary hard drive to offload the games onto instead. You can learn how to move Steam games and saved game files to another computer or hard drive here. If you have a giant hard drive you may be less concerned about storage capacity, and perhaps you just want to delete or uninstall a game if you no longer use it, or if you just find it too distracting to keep around. If you’re aiming for the latter, you might want to stop Steam launching automatically on the Mac during boot, restart, or login too – it’s less distracting if it doesn’t open itself automatically!
Oh and for the less familiar, you may be wondering what the heck Steam is. Well, Steam is a gaming distribution platform for Mac, PC, and Linux, that makes it easy to buy, download, and install a wide variety of popular games from a central repository. Popular games like Civilization, Half Life, Battlegrounds, DOTA 2, Terraria, Counter Strike, Grand Theft Auto, Rust, Rocket League, and much more are available on Steam. You can think of it sort of like a dedicated gaming app store that has many cross-platform compatible games, though some of the games are limited to specific operating systems.
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