Here's how you sustain this model: package the VM with free software just like the toolbar guys do. You pay the software guys a cut of the profit for every setu

Here's how you sustain this model: package the VM with free software just like the toolbar guys do. You pay the software guys a cut of the profit for every setup they have running (referral fee) and users get a new way to "pay" for software. I like this idea much better than all the spyware/crapware software vendors have to package into their product to earn a living. Consumers don't care about $2/month but a business would care about getting paid $2/month thousands of times. Edit: If a VM is too big to download all at once with a freeware product, you just install the seed software. Then, over the next few days, the seed software downloads the VM and slowly sets it up so there's no disruption to the customer's activity on the computer. I would also suggest you reserve the space needed on the disk with an empty file, roughly the size of the VM file. This way it's clear just how much space this newly installed software is taking on the customer's computer. This is all based on the idea that the customer agreed to this during the installation. To what extent "agreed" is left up to you to decide. I'd suggest a dedicated page during the installation with a prechecked box that explains what this is and what it's about to do.