Windows Vista Team Blog : News: Revision to Windows Vista retail licensing terms
Several reviews (SecurityFocus, InfoWorld, HEXUS ) of the EULA for Microsoft’s forthcoming Vista OS have been so scathing as to cause MS to rethink their intent. The company released a reworded version of the EULA on the Vista Team Blog which drew a collective sigh of relief from the computer enthusiast community. However, a number of issues still remain. MS still restricts use of Vista within a virtual machine except on the $400 Ultimate edition. It is also unclear how the various upgrade options will effect a users ability to transfer Vista to another machine. Clearly MS needs to iron out some of these issues before Vista goes RTM.
FWIW, Microsoft has restricted the use of virtual machines on anything other than their workstation-class OS for some time now. Virutal PC doesn’t work on Windows XP home, for instance.
That said, I wouldn’t always attribute a Microsoft move based on external criticism to business moves or planned business moves. I think you may be suprised how much pressure is placed on these issues internally at Microsoft.
The MS EULA for Vista limits the use of Vista Home (basic and premium) from within a virtual machine, not the use of Virtual PC. AFAIK this is a new limitation, one that was not in previous EULAs. The problem from an IT standpoint is that it puts us back 5 years or more. We’re now back (legally) to buying individual machines to test an OS configuration rather than using virtualization technology to do the same. It reduces productivity and increases cost. That said, in Microsoft’s defense, they probably didn’t see testing of the home versions as an issue. It seems to aim squarely at enthusiasts wishing to run Vista Home under software like VMWare or Parallels. It’s silly when you think about it. Why would MS legally prevent people, especially Mac users from running Vista on a Mac in Parallels? I would have expected something along the lines of a performance or warranty disclaimer, but not an outright ban.