4 ms·

What if you install Office on a VM? Can you run the VM from multiple machines? Can you move the VM from your old computer to your newer computer?

• pixl97 14y ago
  You 'Can'. The issue is Microsoft doesn't think you should (I believe you have to use a VL). As for Windows VMs, I've found if you keep what is presented to Windows stable, it doesn't know the difference. Keep the MAC address on the network card static (this means you can't run two copies on the same network at the same time, which by the license you shouldn't anyway). After running on a number of different processors Windows may want to reauthorize though. It would not be surprising if they put code that detected a VM in Win8 and Office 2013 some time in the future (or it's already hidden there)
  • phaus 14y ago
    >It would not be surprising if they put code that detected a VM in Win8 and Office 2013 some time in the future. That would be really unfortunate. I run Windows 8 Pro in a VM with a valid license, mostly for the purpose of using Office 2013, which is also a valid license.
    • nwh 14y ago
      I realise that software like VMWare present their virtual devices as their own brand ('VMWare Network Adaptor' and alike), but isn't one of the points of virtualisation that the client doesn't know it's being run in a VM? At least I presume you could make the VM completely transparent, short of running timing tests on the virtual devices.
  • wanion 14y ago
    Yep, Windows can tell if it's running inside a VM. In Windows 8 you can see this in the Task Manager (Performance -> CPU). In the lower right it'll say something along the lines of: Virtual processors: 2 Virtual machine: Yes