Running Windows desktop tests from Linux with disposable VMs

xlazom00 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This is super slow solution I did build similar solution based on dockur. And it was sooo slow. Just use windows docker containers on windows server. With some hacks you can run any gui application.

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Luker88 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

what is the minimum license that I would need to do this legally, with just one or two VMs?

	▲	OneDeuxTriSeiGo 30 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It depends what you need to run. There exist a number of Windows images which can be run without any paid license requirements for test and validation IIRC. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu... https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactu...
	▲	jadenlemmon 26 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		it depends on where you are running it. If using a cloud provider, license is typically built into hourly price.

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trollbridge an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not to dismiss this, but when I was working on a problem on Windows recently my LLM (6.1 Sol / oh-my-pi) ended up doing the same thing, although it used Qemu and snapshots to accomplish that.

Eventually it got to a point it could iterate very quickly and was really only constrained by total system RAM which meant a dozen at most copies could be running simultaneously.

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mcoliver an hour ago | parent [-]

Same. It's quite remarkable. Two other things Claude and I have done. I have a spare workstation running proxmox in my garage. Claude can now create, snapshot, delete, extend, start, and restart vms. It's been great. I also have skills that allow it to spin up spot instances when I need to test things that rely on hardware I don't have like certain Nvidia gpus or 100gb networking. What a time to be alive.

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trollbridge 44 minutes ago | parent [-]

To be fair, you never needed LLMs to be able to do all that.

	▲	rsolva 35 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		To be fair, often you have good ideas, but not enough time. I have had a lot of fun having Qwen3.8 27b running at home, having it explore and implement ideas that was way to ambitious for the time I had available to tinker with Home Assistant and Proxmox. It is an enabler and can also be a good tutor, when used as such. I have learned a lot.
	▲	alasano 33 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"be able" implying capability rather than time constraints and opportunity cost which is what most people on here refer to when they mention something cool they're doing with LLMs that they weren't doing before.

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defied an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We’ve been providing a similar approach with disposable VMs and emulators/simulators since 2014 at TestingBot. We run our own single-use QEMU VMs with Windows and Linux.

	▲	madduci 19 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Same here, we used Proxmox as host to spin up ready images built with Packer and starting them with Vagrant to provision the app on the system under test, the whole triggered by the CI build

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joinjune an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We used several different LLM's and our own skills to build out some novel approaches to document creation with new workflows using QEMU in Linux after upgrading our desktops to Ubuntu from Windows 11.

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blahgeek an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Nothing new here. VM + WebRTC + warm pool to absorb boot time

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itissid an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why is the comments from the OP marked as flagged or dead at the bottom?

	▲	realusername an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Looks like AI written so it got auto-flagged by a bot probably

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ranger_danger an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Why not use snapshots/save states so the VMs start back up right away? This is what I do with QEMU.

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ProblemExplorer 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

Doesn't Windows do some drama if its not activated and has been running without a license for more than 48h or similar?

I don't use windows but have to run windows 11 VM to access special devices. I don't want to bother with licenses, although I have them, and creating a new incus QEMU VM from scratch everytime from an ISO takes ~5m, freeing me up from worrying about all the activation and license drama.

If the activation and license setup was easy/automated in QEMU, I would imagine snapshots would be way easier. I would prefer not needing to connect to the internet.

	▲	c-hendricks 30 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Doesn't Windows do some drama if its not activated and has been running without a license for more than 48h or similar Your info might be like decades out of date, since windows 10 it's just been an overlay and locking out some appearance customizations (you can still set them via other means though).