Posted on 10/12/2006 6:14:06 PM PDT by zeugma
Microsoft has released licenses for the Windows Vista operating system that dramatically differ from those for Windows XP in that they limit the number of times that retail editions can be transferred to another device and ban the two least-expensive versions from running in a virtual machine.
The new licenses, which were highlighted by the Vista team on its official blog Tuesday, add new restrictions to how and where Windows can be used.
"The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device," reads the license for Windows Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, Ultimate, and Business. In other words, once a retail copy of Vista is installed on a PC, it can be moved to another system only once.
The new policy is narrower than Windows XP's. In the same section, the license for Windows XP Home states: "You may move the Software to a different Workstation Computer. After the transfer, you must completely remove the Software from the former Workstation Computer." There is no limit to the number of times users can make this move. Windows XP Professional's license is identical.
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.
Vista Home Basic, at $199 for a full version and $99 for an upgrade, and Vista Home Premium ($239/$159), are the two most-affordable retail editions of the operating system scheduled to appear on store shelves in January 2007.
Although the Vista team's blog did not point out these changes, it did highlight others. "Two notable changes between Windows Vista license terms and those for Windows XP are: 1) failure of a validation check results in the loss of access to specific features; and 2) an increase in our warranty period from 90 days to 1 year, which brings Windows in line with most other Microsoft products," wrote Vista program manager Nick White.
Specifically, the Vista license calls out the ramifications of a failed validation check of Vista.
"The software will from time to time validate the software, update or require download of the validation feature of the software," it reads. "If after a validation check, the software is found not to be properly licensed, the functionality of the software may be affected."
Vista's new anti-piracy technologies, collectively dubbed "Software Protection Platform," have met with skepticism by analysts and criticism by users. Under the new program, a copy of Vista that's judged to be in violation of its license, or is counterfeit, is disabled after a set period, leaving the user access only to the default Web browser, and then only for an hour at a time.
In other words, Microsoft doesn't want Mac owners to use those versions of Vista.
You can have one virtual machine set up as a web server, another as a database server and a third as development environment. It is exactly like running three computers on a network, only they're all on the same PC.
It can require a lot of memory depending on how many virtual machines(vm) you run at that same time (a different instance of an OS would run in each VM). You don't have to run all the different VM's at the same time and you can also decide how much memory to give to each VM. I could have a 2GB machine and can run a number of instances of XP and Linux before getting into trouble.
There are a lot of very cool benefits to running VM's. One is I can save the current "state" of a VM and then reload that same "state" later. So let's say I am running some Office apps and instead of closing everything, I just suspend the state of the VM and load it back exactly the way it was later (with office programs still running).
Another great feature is I can save the state of a VM before installing a new application. If that application is "evil" and it causes all sorts or problems, I can simply bring back the "old saved state" and all is well.
Also you brought up another example, running different apps from different OS's side by side. That is another reason as well.
For me I do development work so often times I need to test client software from different platforms. A great way to alpha test this is using VMWare just to make sure everything works.
VMWare also works on some pretty larger server platforms, so some people may want to run a number of Windows 2003 and/or Linux servers all on the same computer.
The only way to stop Microsoft is to refuse to by this crap.
So don't buy it. Call Dell or whoever and have them spend 15 minutes on the phone telling you all about there computer. Then just say to them....Sorry....I don't want windows vista. No sale.
Virtualization is one of the latest buzzwords in the IT crowd. What it really is, is a way of emulating another computer underneath the OS you are already running. I've used this at work quite a bit to simulate clusters of computers, and how they all network together. We're starting to roll out virtual machines in our dev/test environments and eventually to production as well.
With virtualization, you can have a computer running, say ESX server (vmware) which is basically a tuned linux kernel. This server then creates virtual computers that can boot up a few copies of windows (each running in their own little space, thinking that they are the only thing running on that hardware), a few copies of Linux, and a copy of BSD for good measure. The main benefit of running them like this (especially the windows servers), is that a serious crash, be it the OS or software will not affect any of the other servers running on that physical machine because they are completely separated from each other and in fact are not aware of the other 'virtual' machines that are running.
It's cool tech. Overblown a bit in some quarters, but amazingly powerful in others.
It's important to have a lot of memory to run virtualization effectively. I can give you one really good instance for when virtualization would be an absolute Godsend though.
Imagine you are a person who tests software. You need to tes this software under Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, and Windows XP. How would you do that? Well, in the past, you'd have 4 machines, or you'd set up a bootloader that would let you boot multiple versions of the OS for the situation you need to test. That's a lot of time you'd spend watching a POST.
Instead, with virtualization, you could have all 4 versions of the OS running at the same time on the same box, each in their own window. I can tell you right now, that absolutely rocks.
I was testing out some stuff with our DNS servers the other day and needed to simulate a replication of our two internal and two external DNS servers. Rather than having to have 4 servers built specifically for this purpose, I merely built the all in vmware in their own virtualized network. Granted, I didn't simulate a firewall between each pair, but if I'd had more time, I could easily have done that as well. Once I was all done, I shut down the boxes, zipped up the directories that contained their images and cut them to a DVD. Now, when I need to do this again, I can just unzip the directories, fire them up and test away! As you can tell, I'm a big believer of virtualization from a testlab POV.
I'll get Vista when I upgrade. Probably sometime next spring.
SimplyMEPIS and PCLinuxOS are the best Linux distro's IMHO...
If you dual boot Windows and Mac OS X on the Mac, then Windows isn't running under a VM, it's running directly on the hardware like any other PC.
Not that I imagine that many macs will actually be running Vista (not enough for Microsoft to bother changing their licensing policy, anyway.)
And why the hell not? Talentless Redmond wankers!
I think they're afraid that people will go for the option of running Mac OS for most everything, and then finding the cheapest way possible to run Vista at the same time, through Parallels or VMWare for corporate-IT created corporate-crapware.
click here when you get tired of microsoft's BS. awesome distro and it's not leftist crazy about everything be opensource.
There's an inexpensive VM product for the Mac, in beta I think, supposed to be good.
Running both on one box, would be quite attractive to a lot of folks I think. It would allow those who prefer a Mac, but have to have a PC for a few apps or business use, to just have one box.
Also, Mac hardware came in cheaper than apples-to-apples HW from Dell.
So buying one box, better and cheaper, than having two could be quite attractive.
Microsoft's EULA will be an issue for Macs using VM products like Parallels or VMWare. Bootcamp should not have a problem - but we'll have to see the fine print in the EULA to be sure.
If XP ever becomes unusable for me, I guess I'll finally get on the Linux bandwagon.
Ditto here.
If I am still using XP when support is dropped for it...I'll be going to Linux.
More precisely, I will have gone to Linux by the time that happens.
Vista is looking more and more linke a boondoggle that is signalling the death throes of the Redmond Giant.
Because of the universe of programs written for the MS platforms.
Though games, Apps and freeware/shareware utilities are being written more and more for Linux, there is still a wide chasm between the two as far as availability of programs. I'd switch tomorrow but I have no way of duplicating all the programs I use (and there are a ton of them) for a Linux OS...nor do I have the time to search for those duplicates.
I will find the time when/if MS pisses me off sufficiently to make it a must.
I like Simply Mepis. I use it on occasion but will stick with XP until...well, you know.
They're doing their best to make that happen.
If Microsoft can fix most of the security problems, which they probably can by simply restricting local user admin access, they would have a sure winner. Right now the only real problem with the MS O/S's is all the haters out there and endless supply of malware.
thats comes with being #1
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