Microsoft eases Vista virtualisation

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 22 January 2008 10:02

Business IT - Technology

Mac owners planning to run Windows Vista under virtualisation software such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion have previously been forced by Microsoft's licensing terms to buy one of the more expensive versions.

While Windows Home Basic or Premium might have been perfectly adequate for their needs, an artificial licensing restriction ruled out those options. Not that Apple's operating system was singled out - the clause also applied if you wanted to run Vista under a Windows-based VM product such has Microsoft's own VirtualPC or a bare-metal virtualsation system such as VMware's offerings.

Microsoft officials previously justified the clause by suggesting it was to protect home users from their own lack of sophistication when it came to security issues. That always seemed hollow to me, as the company was happy to take the extra cash from home users that were prepared to buy Vista Ultimate or Business. (The Enterprise edition also allowed virtualisation.)

Last June, Microsoft was set to reverse its policy but the change was vetoed on the eve of its announcement.

Since that time, Parallels and Fusion have grown in popularity among the Mac community.

Whether the 'no virtualisation' clause actually stopped anyone running Home Basic or Premium in a VM is anybody's guess. My suspicion is that quite a number have been doing it.

That said, Windows XP is generally more popular as a guest operating system as it is more tried and tested, and less resource hungry. The higher levels of security provided by Vista would likely be welcomed by Mac users seeking  a second OS to run certain applications.

Apple recently relaxed its licence terms so that Mac OS X Server - but not the regular desktop version - can be run under virtualisation.