Yes, changing the IMEI on a cellular device is illegal in most countries, however wanting to know how to do it does not mean a person is trying to do anything illegal.

In my case, I am running an android appliance in a virtual machine on my laptop. I have no idea how, but it keeps assigning an IMEI to a NON-cellular device (most tablets do not have this, they should only be assigned an Android Device ID). Thus I cannot play any games on my vm as the IMEI it keeps assigning is actually in use by someone. Thereby causing me to involuntarily spoof someone else's IMEI. I want to change that seeing as how it's not illegal to change if the device does not reside on a cellular network, and I would love to have proper usability on my virtual machine.

Also, it is most certainly not illegal to install an android device in a virtual machine as it is a freeware OS. Thus my interest in learning to change my IMEI.

For example, bluestacks (a well done but INCREDIBLY slow android emulator does not provide cellular IMEI), can be used to create many accounts for any Mobage game (a company that uses IMEI validation), however it is FAR to slow on most netbooks. Creating a VM works amazing, but how to I either remove the IMEI on my non-cellular device or is there another way I can go about this?

Dunno if anyone can help or point me in the right direction? For all I know this could even be the wrong forum to discuss this?