Illegal to install low end versions of Vista in Parallels

[aussie_geek]

quoted from sydney Morning Herald article

"Lurking in that 14-page agreement is a ban on using the least expensive versions of Vista - the $A385 Home Basic edition and the $A455 Home Premium edition - in virtualization engines."

Why some users are prevented from upgrading to Vista

aussie_geek

 

[pauly6734]

I know, and I thought that is just silly in the part of Microsoft. That is why I just bought the WindowXP. It is painful enough to shell out $210.00 for the Window XP; I cannot image anyone would pay $400.00 for the high end Vista that Microsoft wants you to buy. For $400.00 you can buy a low end PC laptop at Best Buy.

 

[nplima]

no biggie

This limitation doesn't actually shock me or anything. MS does not want its OS taking a secondary role on people's computers. It looks that simple to me.

Apple inc. does the same by not allowing OS X to run in virtual machines. It's really not attractive for any company to have its products made less relevant by hiding them in some server for virtual appliances. Can't blame these companies for wanting their products to be getting the most attention from users.

If you are managing a big pool of servers, you'll probably be using XP Pro or the server varieties anyway, there's no change in there. If you're a home user and want to run Windows in the background of your Linux or Mac box, MS is not in a real hurry to help you and make that operation unexpensive.
The next day you might realise that running an illegal copy of Windows kept away in your NAS and getting there with remote desktop was good enough, and since it's all virtual and invisible, there would be no pressure on the user to go to a shop and get a legal license for Windows.

 

[Macmadant]

Really it doesn't effect you, i mean theres nothing from stopping you from installing home basic in parallels, and there was a walk through on macwolrd.com a while back