The Next Round in the Virtualization Wars

GvG writes "After making Virtual Server available for free some time ago, Microsoft announced today it is offering Virtual PC as a free (as in beer) download. They also announced a change to the Vista license related to virtualization: Customers who deploy Windows Vista Enterprise have the ability to install up to four (4) copies of the operating system in a virtual machine for a single user on a single device. Even better, nothing in the license requires that Microsoft Virtualization technologies be used - if you want to use a competing product as your Virtualization solution, you still get the four extra licenses for use with VMs."

Comments

Sorry Mac Users

[thedbp]

the version of VPC that is freely available only runs on Windows.

Blarg!

What is supported

[Nemith]

Check out this link as to what will work on VPC and what won't. http://vpc.visualwin.com/

Re:I don't get why this is so special?

[thedbp]

Um, NO.

WINE uses reverse engineered Windows APIs to run Windows apps w/out running a copy of Windows and isn't compatible with a metric shit-ton of software.

Virtual PC runs a full copy of Windows in a sandboxed environment, great for servers to compartmentalize their various services or for Mac users to run a Windows-only app and is exactly like running Windows on an actual PC.

Don't you people know how to use Google?

Re:What about XP and others

[julesh]

But how do I do that if I have a Vista system and want to install a copy of XP?

Microsoft licenses typically allow you to run an older version of the same software in place of the current version if you wish. I'm not sure that this applies to the vista license, but I suspect it does.

The same question exists if I have an XP system and I want to install an XP virtual machine on it.

The XP license (at least the corporate one) allows you to run one virtual instance, in the same way the Vista one allows 4. All they're doing here is increasing the numbers.

Re:Is this what I want?

[RShizzle]

Yes, VPC can run a variety of Linux distributions and is very useful for testing code, or having a secondary operating system. See this http://vpc.visualwin.com/ for the full list of supported platforms. However, VMware workstation is still much more configurable and powerful (though not free) and will allow you to run almost every x86 operating system completely unmodified.

Re:Who still runs Windows 3.1?

[orangesquid]

Old PC-controlled laboratory instruments. If the instrument still works, why (a) pay for a new instrument, (b) train technicians on the new instrument, (c) possibly buy new mounting hardware, (c) train technicians with new versions of the software, (d) come up with new calibration parameters for the new instrument, (e) work out new statistical correlations for the different sample types' properties, (f) get the instrument certified for certain industrial applications (automotive, medical, etc.), (g) possibly buy software to convert between older and newer data file formats?

Some lab instruments will run for a good 10-20 years... there are probably still a few DEC PDP's and Apple II/GS's out there connected to instruments somewhere!