Windows Laptop
 

OK, I need a Windows laptop to do some trouble shooting/remote coding with this new headunit install for the BMW. I do not have a Windows laptop or any other kind of windows machine at this point other than my work laptop, which is obviously locked down tight.

What is the easiest and/or cheapest way around this dumb and extremely annoying problem? Boot camp on the Mac, I guess, but that would mean buying a copy of Windows? I don't really want to spend the money to do that. Nor do I want to buy a new laptop just for this one task.

What a pain in the ass.

EDIT: Should I just buy something like this and take it back when I'm done?

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-14-l...?skuId=6450167

find a friend with a windows laptop...and/or...someone's kid surely has one for online school?

what dan said, or jump on ebay and get a used one for $200 or less. Or check out the bimmercode or Carly app for your Iphone w/ an OBD dongle and see if either of them will do the codin you need.

I bought a Windows laptop off eBay for a similar purpose. 1) Running the tuning software for the RX-8 and 2) running the Durametric tool for the Boxster.

There are a few extremely highly rated sellers that basically re-sell corporate lease laptops. I think I paid $180 or so and it's been rock solid.

What about running Windows in VMWare Fusion?

Fusion is now a free license for personal use (requires registration, but no cost).

MS has a Win10 image you can download to install in Fusion... It will require activation, but not immediately. Should let you run in trial mode for at least a few days. The software won’t know you are on a VM, and you can attach USB devises to the VM.

I reinstalled Win10 in a VM like that last year - and didn’t activate it immediately and it ran fine...

Edit: even better - here’s a link to a VM image to download. Run that in Fusion. Image is valid until mid-May... https://developer.microsoft.com/en-u...tual-machines/

What does the machine need? (memory speed wise) I have an HP laying around that I wiped to factory settings. it even has a touch screen.

We were going to donate it, so shipping cost (it is in its original HP packaging) and it is yours

It was my wife's until about 5 months ago. I would not call it a "fast" machine

Thanks, all! I think I found one to borrow locally.

I saw that you solved the problem locally, but I'll answer this here in case anyone else refers to the thread in the future.

Microsoft has various places you can download evaluation or trial versions of Windows (evaluation = time-limited, can't be converted to a regular install by purchasing a license key, trial = time-limited but you can purchase a license key to use it perpetually). These are normally in the 30- to 90-day range (from date of installation).

Coding software may have copy protection that doesn't work properly in a virtualized environment or for other reasons (for example, the older Autoenginuity dongles need a 2nd USB port for their copy-protection thingy, so a system with a single USB port would have problems).

Please don't. It just makes it harder for the rest of us to do returns for valid reasons in the future (didn't work, mis-specified features, etc.) without paying a restocking fee and/or jumping through hoops. Plus, for a time there was a big problem with people returning new boxes with bricks or flooring tiles in them, so stores are wary of returns.

eBay systems can be hit-or-miss, and most sellers don't provide detailed specs on the system (like screen resolution) to make an informed decision. A lot of them seem to come with pirated copies of Windows 10 - this seems quite common on systems that were sold with an earlier Windows versions, and the seller used a stock cracked image instead of installing the Windows that the license sticker was good for and then doing the "free upgrade" thing to get a legitimate serial number.

I've been buying Studio 1558s on eBay for $50-$100 and putting new SSDs in them. That's a 10-year-old model which is actually still competitive today, if upgraded to a top-spec configuration. I then sell them to friends at cost. This is not something you should try yourself unless you're comfortable tearing a system down to a set of individual pieces. I've documented some of what I do on my blog.

I like old thinkpads for this kind of use.