Virtualization Daily

InfoWorld has an article up, The Truth About Vista Virtualization Licensing. There has been a lot of discussion about exactly what Microsoft is allowing Windows Vista users to do with virtualization. The conclusion according to InfoWorld is that Microsoft is not going to allow Windows Vista Home editions to run under virtualization. From the article.

This begs the question, does the EULA mean I cannot run Vista Home in a virtual machine? Or does it simply mean I cannot reuse the license from the host OS on a guest OS running inside of a virtual machine?

It seems as though the former is correct. According to a Microsoft spokesperson, “For production machines and everyday usage, virtualization is a fairly new technology, and one which we think is not mature enough for broad consumer adoption. Today, customers using this technology are primarily business customers addressing application compatibility needs or technology enthusiasts. For everyday usage, Windows Vista Home and Home Premium cannot be installed in any virtual machine technology, but Business and Ultimate versions can. Each virtual installation of Windows requires a new license just as it did for Windows XP.”

To me that response from Microsoft is complete and utter nonsense. How does a technical argument justify a licensing solution? This just looks like a jab at Mac users who are making it a habit of running Windows under Parallels to just run a couple apps that don’t have good Mac alternatives yet. For that purpose you don’t need one of the expensive Vista business editions, you just want the cheapest thing that will work. What Microsoft is saying is that you either reboot your Mac to run windows on the raw hardware, or empty your pocketbook for a business version of Vista that does a whole bunch of stuff you don’t need. Nice!