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"PIN no longer available problem" in advanced raw disk VM setup

Rifsam 0 Reputation points
2023-08-26T13:39:02.8666667+00:00

To give some context, my machine is setup with 2 physical NVME disks, one with Windows 11 installed and the other with Linux installed (the particular distro should not matter in this situation). This multiboot setup is useful in order to have both OS available for use at raw level performance. However, it is nice to occasionally be able to run both OS at the same time. My solution to this is using Virtualbox on both OS, whereby the host OS can spin up the guest OS by running the guest OS in a VM and accessing the NVME disk through a Virtualbox raw disk image, which essentially is a virtual hard disk image that in fact provides direct access to the NVME disk. So for example, I can be running my Windows 11 OS from disk 1 as the host and use Virtualbox to startup the Linux OS from disk 2 as a guest VM. Thankfully this works fine in both directions with either OS acting as the host/guest respectively.

The issue I am facing is regarding the scenario whereby I access the Windows OS for the first time in the alternate guest/host position. So this problem occurs when I run the Windows OS as a guest when it was last started as a host, and vice versa when I run the Windows OS as a host when it was last started as a guest. This problem does not occur when the Windows OS is run from the same guest/host position as the previous run. The problem is that when the Windows OS starts up in the alternate guest/host position, I receive the following message at the login screen:

"Your PIN is no longer available due to a change to the security settings on this device. Click to set up your PIN again."

After setting up the PIN again by logging into my Microsoft account and authenticating myself, everything works perfectly until the next time I restart the Windows OS in the alternate guest/host position. I am hoping someone could help me find a solution whereby I can setup a PIN that simultaneously works for both host and guest configurations of Windows, thus avoiding this problem altogether. Any ideas and assistance on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

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  1. Ian Xue 36,751 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2023-09-22T11:13:47.7066667+00:00

    Hi,

    I think this is the expected behavior. It is required to set up your PIN when there is a hardware change. Since the physical host and virtualbox VM have different hardware you have to reset your pin every time you boot from a different physical or virtual machine.

    Best Regards,

    Ian Xue

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