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Microsoft Slugs Mac Users With Vista Tax
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.
Subscribers actually see these stories early.. and there's a line on them that says "if you see anything obviously wrong with this article, email ..." and there's a link. About 2 times out of the 8 times I've emailed something has happened that appears to be in response to my email. "dupe" seems to get them jumping. For this article I emailed "this doesn't affect bootcamp" but I was ignored.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Yes, this article is crap, but for what it's worth, the Vista Home Basic and Home Premium license is intended to prohibit use in any kind of virtual machine environment. I had the same line of reasoning you did. Vista Ultimate does come with two licenses, but Home Basic and Home Premium really do intend (apparently) to prohibit use in virtualization. This has been covered repeatedly, and confirmed by Microsoft representatives.
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On Oct 23, 2006, at 8:23 AM, Paul Thurrott wrote:
Microsoft told me that the retail EULA forbids the installation of Windows Vista Home Basic or Home Premium in virtual machines. They said that if developers wanted to do this, they should get an MSDN subscription, which has a different license allowing such an install. All that said, there's nothing technical from preventing users from installing any Vista version in a virtual machine.
Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Schroeder [mailto:das@doit.wisc.edu]
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 9:15 AM
To: thurrott@windowsitpro.com
Subject: Row over Vista virtualization much ado about nothing?
Paul,
In reading about Vista virtualization, it occurred to me that all
this may be a result of the incorrect interpretation of the EULA:
Microsoft's Vista EULA says:
"4. USE WITH VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES. You may not use the
software installed[1] on the licensed device[2] within a virtual (or
otherwise emulated) hardware system."
This means you can't use the *same* installation of Vista Home inside
a virtualization technology on the "licensed device".
This DOES NOT mean you can't use it by itself in a virtualization
product on any platform. If that instance of Vista is not installed
anywhere else, there is no preexisting "licensed device".
The reason this is included in the EULA is because Vista Business and
Ultimate actually include additional licenses specifically so the
same license can be used to also run in a virtualization environment
on the same device where Vista is already installed.
The higher end versions of Vista actually include more in terms of
virtualization licensing than any other commercial OS.
In any case, by my reading, this means all versions of Vista can
still be legally used standalone in a virtualized environment, such
as Parallels or VMWare.
[1] This means "the software" (i.e., Vista Home Basic or Premium) is
already installed on a licensed device.
[2] The "licensed device" is the device that Vista Home is already
installed on, and that license may not be reused to also install it
in a virtualization environment, which you CAN do with Vista Business
and Ultimate, because Microsoft includes additional licenses
specifically for virtualization use, which is why there are all these
specifics about virtualization use on the lower end Vista versions in
the EULA in the first place.
Thoughts?
From what I've seen, this does not just apply to multiple installations. You really are not allowed to install a basic version on a VM, even if you buy a unique copy and only use it for that purpose.
Yes, you really are allowed to do damn near anything you want to with it. You bought it, it's your property. You can't make copies for other people due to copyright law, but if you want to install it in a virtual machine running on your toaster then knock yourself out.
There is not one god damned thing in the world that allows them to dictate how you choose to use your property.
Pretending that they have rights that they do not and treating this nonsense in their meaningless EULA as if it were even sane is just fucking retarded.
Run it anywhere you damn well please. It is your right if you paid for it.
That would seem like the logical thing but in today's world you didn't buy it and it's not your property. You have simply paid MS for the rights to use their intellectual property under the terms they dictate.
I have yet to hear of a single court case lending any validity to that viewpoint.
Were I to buy one of their products, I'd head down to the computer store, pay Microcenter for a product in a box and I would own it. Whatever nonsense they want to write inside the box is meaningless.
There is nothing that gives them any right to say shit about what I do with it (within copyright law). They weren't even part of the transaction.
> I think comparisons with car manufacturers should be eschewed until the point in time when you can sue Microsoft for damages you incur while using their products.
It's not just cars, *anything* can be sold by charging more for extra 'features'. That applies to salt and breakfast cereal to 747s. It's called product differentiation and it's pretty much Economics 101. How does Microsoft become 'monopolistic' by charging more for certain editions -- they're merely trying to maximize their revenue -- when every other company does the same? It's not like they're hiding the cheaper editions. Hell, given that most home users will buy Vista from their OEMs, they'll probably use Vista Home Premium quite contentedly anyway.
Go somewhere random