Vista Licenses Limit OS Transfers, Ban VM Use

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 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.

Changing any three or more triggers reactivation

I don't think this is a concern in a virtual environment.

Once the OS is loaded, there is no reinstalling. One copy of the newly installed virtual machine can be duplicated endlessly, if the originally provisioned storage space is adequate.

Virtual machines can be network transfered to the care of virtual servers on a variety of popular hosts. Running a virtual XP machine on a Linux host is an excellent combination for the home user.

Hardware is virtual; a hardware emulation layer supplied by VMware. As long as the server's configuration isn't changed, the hardware signature remains the same.

Running a virtual machine on an open source host is thrifty. No cost for the host system, no cost for the virtual server and no cost for additional, Microsoft licenses.

Running a virtual machine on an open source host is relatively painless, even for Microsoft users. Both installation of the host distribution and the virtual server is menu driven and there are many OS specific how-tos available on the web. XP doesn't phone home at installation and security upgrades aren't necessary since this vulnerable software is behind several layers of obfuscation on a simple home network. If the OS is corrupted, the machine is simply deleted and a duplicate copy transfered from memory.

There are only three inconveniences that I've encountered using this arrangement. Processing speed in the virtual environment is somewhat reduced. Using LTP1 communication for older imaging devices requires disabling a default module at host start up. Transferring data between the virtual machine and the host requires a NAS.

For these small inconveniences I gain relatively secure surfing on the host, no need to constantly patch Microsoft and the availability of XP to play with the latest, fad applications or peripheral specific drivers as they become available.

I have been an Mac hater from early on. I didn't like their proprietary hardware. I didn't like the fact that they lured people in with "ease of use", only to hit them with either "we don't offer that software" or "we have that software, but it cost twice as much as similar DOS/Windows software." To make matters worse, the hardware was expensive for what it was.

Windows won me over with cheap, plentiful hardware, good business apps, and cool games. Now that Apple is taking away the hardware objections, OpenOffice works on everything, and my game machines handle 90% of the gaming I do, why should I continue to put up with Microsoft's crap?

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