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Microsoft Slugs Mac Users With Vista Tax

Posted by samzenpus on from the pay-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mac users wanting to run Vista on their Macintosh, alongside Mac OS X programs, will have to buy an expensive version of Vista if they want to legally install it on their systems. The end-user license agreement for the cheaper versions of Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium) explicitly forbids the use of those versions on virtual machines (i.e., Macs pretending to be PCs)." Update: 02/08 17:50 GMT by KD : A number of readers have pointed out that the Vista EULA does not forbid installing it via Apple's Bootcamp; that is, the "tax" only applies to running Vista under virtualization.

10 of 661 comments (clear)

  1. older news by DaMattster · · Score: 5, Funny

    I just know I am going to get modded for this. Please be gentle. I believe Chairman Gates, when asked about why he wasn't allowing low end copies of Vista to be run virtually, his response was akin to, Consumers do not have the knowledge or technical expertise to run Vista in a virtual environment. Please! I think his statement was English for "You need to pay more money to us in order to do that."

  2. Re:MAC users who want to run Vista Home by rwyoder · · Score: 5, Funny

    Tell me again why a MAC user would _want_ to run vista on their MAC?
    For the same reason I bought Mercedes and then went to all the trouble of installing a Yugo engine it it.
  3. Re:Summary incorrect. by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Exactly, hasn't this been reported about 17 times already on Slashdot?
    You must be new here.
  4. Re:Why not? by djh101010 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Aren't Mac users apparently proud of paying through their teeth for everything? (snip of blah blah blah) Oh, how little you understand us. It's _fine_ if you don't like Mac. But I can't help but wonder what, if any, direct personal recent experience you have with them. It may surprise you, but many Mac people who don't like MS, are intimately familiar with their products. The opposite, oddly enough, rarely seems to be true. It's OK if you enjoy your Windows systems. Really. That's just fine. But when you then go on to speak of that which you either don't understand, or choose to misrepresent, well, it goes into "give it a rest, wouldya?"
  5. Yeah by Infonaut · · Score: 4, Funny

    Exactly, hasn't this been reported about 17 times already on Slashdot?

    Like you said, it's *only* been reported 17 times.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  6. Hi, I'm somewhat new to Slashdot... by IronTeardrop · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... isn't there some editorial process here that is supposed to filter out obvious stupidity?

  7. Re:Apples moves into VM by wfWebber · · Score: 3, Funny

    So, just to clarify, if I want to run it on my Mac, I will have to pay for it? Now there's a wild concept.

    --
    Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum
  8. Re:MAC users who want to run Vista Home by cibyr · · Score: 3, Funny

    Call it: "write once, test everywhere"
    It's better than the old "write once, debug everywhere!"
    --
    It's not exactly rocket surgery.
  9. Re:Apples moves into VM by cheater512 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah thats with XP. This is NEW Windows Vista with 20% more EULA.

  10. Re:Apples moves into VM by C0rinthian · · Score: 3, Funny

    Under common law both sides have to benefit for an agreement to be valid, and in the case of an EULA you get nothing. You get permission to use their software. Although many here would not consider it a benefit...