Microsoft is expected to announce on Tuesday that it is making its virtualization file format available for free and without a license. At an interoperability conference in Brussels, the software giant said that its Virtual Hard Disk Image Format specification can be used by third parties without the need for them to get a commercial license. The virtualization technology will be available under the terms of Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise, which it introduced in September.
an open format which you cant use with most of their products, cheers, helpful of you..
(refering to the new vista licence)
Until there’s clarification by MS, the license does not appear to bar virtualization on any Vista SKU. The key differences between Ultimate and the Home SKUs are that you need a seperate license for each Home SKU you run in a VM, wheras Ultimate includes the right to run the same copy you have installed on your PC in a VM.
Unless someone can show an official statement to the contrary, the “VM Ban” is being blown out of proportion.
“Elsewhere in the license, Microsoft forbids users from installing Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium in a virtual machine. “You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system,” the legal language reads. Vista Ultimate and Vista Business, however, can be installed within a VM.'” Overly Critical Guy points out more information about changes to Vista’s EULA and the new usage restrictions. “For instance, Home Basic users can’t copy ISOs to their hard drives, can’t run in a virtualized environment, and can only share files and printers to a maximum of 5 network devices.”
http://keznews.com/12721=Vista_Licenses_Limit_OS_Transfers__Ban_VM_…
i consider something written in their EULA an ‘offical statment’. don’t you?
The EULA says you can’t use the same copy you have installed on a licensed device (i.e., a PC) on a VM (for the Home SKUs). In other words, you need a license for the PC and the VM instance. Ultimate includes VM rights for the same licensed copy you have installed on your PC.
The EULA does not say you can’t install the Home SKUs on a VM. The Techweb article your link refers to was later updated to remove the “VMs are banned” passages.
Edited 2006-10-17 23:52
it seems you are right, the articals I had read previously on the issue have begun to be updated with new information. apologies
No problem. I do think MS should further clarify the language in the license and/or publish a FAQ providing simple answers to the issues/questions surrounding it, as the VM clause isn’t the only one I’ve seen multiple interpretations of.
err, is this the same Microsoft that I’ve heard of?
On the other hand, I think we really could do with some consolidation in this area. Each virtualization solution seems to use its own virtual hard disk format.
On my Mac I have .dmg disk image files. I’m not familiar with the specifics of how that format is licensed, but surely everyone could have just used an existing format like this for their VMs?