I blogged my frustration with upgrading Windows 8.1 VHD-Boot instance to Windows 10 Technical Preview earlier today . Now I need to warn about another caveat installing Windows 10 TP in a virtual environment, whether directly in a VM or as VHD-Boot setup.

The Picture above shows a typical error Windows 10 TP throws after you’ve installed in a Virtual Environment without activating Execute Disable bit (EDB) or NX (No-eXecute) in your BIOS/UEFI. Every modern CPU comes with this security feature to prevent Software from executing data in the memory. It is the security feature against malware abusing memory leaks prevalent in badly written software. Lets face it, there will always be memory leaks because apps crashing, or your popular “freeware” is actually a Trojan or for whatever reason. This leaves the system open to exploits.

Up till now Microsoft have always allowed this feature to be an Opt-In feature…