I have been running Windows and Linux side-by-side in dual-boot since forever. Switching between OSs this way is a pain, but the best I could get for a long time. Worse, the dual-boot configuration seems to hamper the Windows update process, so my Windows 10 version was beginning to get outdated.

Previously I have considered:

• Running Windows 10 in a VM on a Ubuntu host with an illegal version of Windows (which I object to) or buying an extra license (which feels stupid, because my laptop came with Windows pre-installed).
• Running Ubuntu in a VM on a Windows host, which felt like adding insult to injury.

Recently I rediscovered Qemu, which rekindled my interest in virtual machines (which I had sort of written off since my switch from Vagrant to Docker). But from Apple users I heard of Parallels and how conveniently it merged the MacOS and Windows environments, so I started considering getting a MacBook. But I didn't want to give up on Linux just yet.

And then I found this article, which pointed me to the acpica-tools. With it, you can retrieve your Windows 10 product key. So now I simply did:

1. install Qemu and virt-manager
2. download Windows 10 ISO straight from Microsoft
3. install acpica-tools and acquire product key
4. install Windows 10 in VM

This has the added benefit that I now have an up-to-date install of Windows 10 without any bloatware.