just a question- I wave windows 7 as my main os- IF I run Linux in VM, would the windows os still be accessing internet also when I use the VM to access the net? And would it be possible to set the VM to always be the one that starts so that windows doesn’t automatically connect to net when starting the computer?
I don’t want to go through the hassle of wiping windows off, installing Linux, and reinstalling windows in a VM because I have many many many tweaks and customizations in windows so that it now operates and looks the way I want it to- I’d have to redo all of those and there are many dozens of them
I also have another issue where I run rollbackRX and it only runs on windows- it’s an invaluable tool I do not want to be without as it has saved my computer many times from disaster (it’s basically system restore, only sys-restore on steroids)
I can fully appreciate your reluctance to re-install Windows. I faced the same decision, but decided to bite the bullet. I knew that my Windows environment would eventually need to be rebuilt anyway, for one reason or another -- and that was before MS began to nudge everybody towards Win10.
By investing the time to rebuild my Windows environment as a VM, I will never, ever, have to do it again. Ever. I now have the VM backed up on a USB drive. If my workstation were to catch on fire right now, I could replace it with any make or model of PC, and have my Windows environment back without having to re-install apps or drivers. Windows would never know the hardware changed. That measure of security alone was worth the investment of time to virtualize.
I'm not familiar with rollbackRX, nor the way it functions, but I can see no reason why it wouldn't work in a VM. It would still be running in Windows. The VM appears to be physical hardware to the Windows OS. The only difference is that you have absolute control over what Windows can see or access.
One more tip.. When you install a Linux host, you can do so on a fairly small partition. My root filesystem currently resides on a 100GB SSD partition, but I am only using 24GB of that space -- and I have a massive load of software installed. This would be equivalent to using a small drive C: which could be restored quickly. By keeping your OS filesystem small, and your data stored on a different drive, it is quick and easy to recover from a disaster. If my primary drive dies, I boot the Knoppix thumb drive and 'dd' the 100GB (should really be around 32GB) image back onto a new hard drive. This brings back my entire Linux host, VMWare, and all of my application software.
The bulk of my personal data resides on a 2TB drive which is mounted to /home. That drive has been mirrored onto an external USB drive. If my /home drive dies, the USB drive can be mounted at /home to immediately resume operations until the dead drive can be replaced and restored.
The bottom line: To bring my entire environment back from the dead, I can restore a single 100GB image (should be resized to ~32GB), and/or mount a USB drive to /home. The important part: This could be done quickly onto a completely different PC, and all the VMs will never know the hardware changed.
What you need is VMWare Converter. It's a free download from VMWare and it will image a physical machine as a VMWare VM. I've virtualized several physical machines with it, often laptops, and it works great. VMWare host software is available for Linux, and I seriously doubt if it matters what OS the host will be running on. I don't see how it COULD matter, given that the host and guest OS are very frequently different even when the guest is installed from scratch.