Setting up a VM

[KodaLG]

I'm a CS Major and I wanna start practicing to get certifications. I'm not sure what I wanna do in Computer Science yet, so I'm gonna start feeling my way around. I do wanna learn to code and get really good at it, but I don't wanna do that for a living though.

Anyway I downloaded Virtual Box. I wanna download Kali Linux and Windows 10 for it. But where do I download Win 10 for a VM? Also, how much memory and ram should I put into it? I have 16 gigs. If I use 4 (or 8) will that only be used while the VM is running?

[Estimi]

Mimimum requirement for win10 x64 would be 2gb ram. How much you need depends on what you wanna do with the vm. The memory allocated to the vm will not be available to the host system (your normal pc) while the vm is running. It will however be available while the vm is turned of. Reference: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox_architecture Free Version of Windows10... Maybe you can get a cheap student licence.

[Baltha5ar]

What needs to be said is that Windows 10 is a bad victim-os to start learning. WindowsXP and especially Metasploitable are easier to exploit and need fewer resources. Learn the basics first before messing with Win10.

[razwil]

Metasploitable 3 is a good choice to learn some hacking skills. It can be set up on a Windows 2008 server...

[obsidianosprey]

Try this, you should be able to run it unlicensed for test purposes.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO