Thread: VM question regarding licensing of the OS....

I'm hoping someone has some experience with this...


What is the story with running XP on a VM

For example ... I don't have my XP install on any other machine and I install it on a VM ... I'm legal I presume.

I copy said VM ... copy ... paste .. and hey presto I've technically got two machines running XP .. ? I may only run one instance of this VM at any one time but is it legal to have the copy ? or to run one or the other ?

I run two VMs of the XP machine ... is this legal ? ... Its technically only on the one hardware machine so ...

I guess I probably should read more through VMware site

My trial for VMware runs out in 3 days so I'm just trying to figure out all my options

One license is one install, for multiple VMs you need multiple licenses.

See the Installation and Use Rights section at Product Use Rights

I did try having a look through that .. and my head started to hurt

They talk about instances ... running ... so technically so long as I don't have 2 VMs running with the same OS at the same time I'd be ok ?

It's been many years since Microsoft operated on the idea of concurrent licencing,

I remember when we had to figure out howmany machines at any one time would be running excel for complience.

They ditched that idea so now if you have multiple installs of XP on eather real or VM machines then each one needs a Lic.

As an aside if you are subscribed to MS technet you can get the corporate version of XP install that deos not have the same restrictions and doesnt do the online check to see of the licence file is in use already.

But you would still need to have a licence to stay legal. ( just keep a few old machines around with the licence sticker on the side )