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Anyone here know much about Windows licensing? This seems like a good opportunity to ask. I never run Windows on bare metal. I only run Windows on virtual mach

by dhess 11y ago

Anyone here know much about Windows licensing? This seems like a good opportunity to ask. I never run Windows on bare metal. I only run Windows on virtual machines on my Mac desktop and Mac laptop; only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application. I would like to go legit this time around, but it's nigh-impossible to find any specific documentation from Microsoft which states, in plain, simple English, how I would go about getting the proper license to cover my use case. I find this hard to believe as it's 2015 and certainly there must be countless others who do the same as I (and at least a few of them here on HN). The only official Microsoft document I can find about Windows licensing and virtual machines pertains specifically to business use, and appears to be focused on running Windows in a "Virtual Desktop Infrastructure" (VDI) environment, so I don't believe it applies to me. (I confess I did not read the entire document as it contains so much unfamiliar jargon that I have a hard time parsing it past page one.) Anyway, from what I can tell by gathering bits and pieces posted on various forums by Microsoft community reps or third-party Microsoft "solution providers," Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create, for each host machine I run it on (i.e., M * N licenses). Can anybody here tell me whether that's correct? Because if that's correct, Microsoft can go fly a kite.

alkonaut 11y ago
That's what the license terms say for normal retail licenses of the consumer versions, yes. This is pretty understandable for machines run concurrently. If you have two VMs running 24/7 it makes sense to just consider them "machines" exactly as if they were physical. The question is what happens if you have two VMs with identical hardware where you only ever have one active? Microsofts licensing probably doesn't consider this scenario, so I think it would be a matter of interpretation. In theory you could transfer the license back and forth between the VMs (assuming that stopping and unmounting the inactive VM disk counts as "removing the software" from that machine).
- toyg 11y ago
  That's technically correct, but they could still shout at you when carrying out a review, because you cannot technically guarantee you're running only one at the time.
  - jwr 11y ago
    Is it really the customer's responsibility to technically guarantee that the licensing cannot be breached? I can't technically guarantee that my system hasn't been duplicated (say, by the NSA), but that isn't my responsibility. I'm just not supposed to run two copies simultaneously.
toyg 11y ago
> Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create That is indeed the case. Otherwise you can buy licenses meant for ISPs and cloud-hosting providers. Your "personal use of multiple VMs" is simply not contemplated. You could probably get by with a MSDN subscription, which gives you some leeway.
- dhess 11y ago
  Thanks for the reply. What does an MSDN subscription permit with respect to running multiple VMs? Edit: sounds like pretty much whatever you want.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Whatever you want, for development purposes only. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/584162/what-is-the-windows-server-environment-limit-on-an-msdn-subscription http://stackoverflow.com/questions/584162/what-is-the-window... http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/05/31/msdn-subscriptions-pt-1/ http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/05/31/msdn-subscriptio... : there is a lot of fractal madness in this. "This applies to virtual machines as well – so if even one application on one virtual machine hosted on a physical server is used for production purposes, then ALL the virtual machines AND the physical host must be licensed as if they were production machines." "Training is NOT considered a development activity, so all those being trained and the machines used for the training must be licensed appropriately." may be one of the reasons nobody ever gets any training in this business.
- e12e 11y ago
  The 2012 Server Datacenter Edition is a mere ~6000 USD and allows to run unlimited VMs on up to two physical CPUs. Who ever claimed the licensing costs made a real difference between Microsoft and Linux?
  - sudioStudio64 11y ago
    They only require a license for VM's that run Windows. You can run as many non-windows VM's as you want on the free hyper-v server on as many procs as it will run on.
hpaavola 11y ago
According to http://download.microsoft.com/Documents/UseTerms/Windows%207_Ultimate_English_c44ca3df-8338-4a2f-a176-39d2e68986c4.pdf http://download.microsoft.com/Documents/UseTerms/Windows%207... Use with Virtualization Technologies. Instead of using the software directly on the licensed computer, you may install and use the software within only one virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed computer.
pjc50 11y ago
Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create, for each host machine I run it on. Yes, that's what the license says. In practice, what corporate VM users do is get MSDN licenses, which are assigned to the developer. I have one. It's basically a license to not worry about licensing: I can run as many copies of whatever I like, so long as it's "for testing and development purposes". I think there's a different volume licensing programme available if, god help you, you wanted to run a production datacentre on Windows. Edit: this is obviously a big reason why Windows is never going anywhere in the cloud space outside of Azure.
- dhess 11y ago
  Thanks. That's what I was afraid the answer would be. The cheapest MSDN subscription (OS-only) is $699/yr. For that price I could buy about 6 copies of Windows 10 Home edition. Or 2 new laptops each with a Windows license included. Sheesh.
  - jleight 11y ago
    True, but I don't think anyone really buys an MSDN subscription just for installing a copy of Windows. I haven't looked into the actual licensing terms, but my MSDN subscription (not the cheapest version) only allows me to claim five license keys per Windows version through the UI. If you need six licenses just to make up the cost of the cheapest MSDN subscription, you're probably using your MSDN subscription incorrectly. Generally if you have an MSDN subscription, you're using it for other products like Visual Studio, and the free copies of Windows are just for helping you get a development environment set up.
nly 11y ago
Same boat. I bought a laptop with W7 on it, and it's still installed, but I only ever use Windows via a pirated copy in a VM I'll probably, eventually be using a pirate copy of W10 in a VM as well, despite being entitled to run a copy natively.
ikeboy 11y ago
>only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application. If you're using it rarely, why not use the trial version, and reset to a snapshot whenever you use it? You can save data on a separate virtual disk, and only reset the operating system disk. There used to be VMs at https://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/ https://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/. I don't see Windows 10 there right now, not sure why, but I know I've downloaded from there before; maybe wait a few weeks or so.
- currysausage 11y ago
  Would that actually work? Wouldn't the trial version still notice that it was initialized more than 90 days ago? I don't want to initialize the OS whenever I use it.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    It doesn't take that long to initialize, and you only need to do it every 90 days. If you get the pre-installed VM, it only takes a couple minutes from first boot to ready to use. Besides, I think you can "rearm" and use for another 90 days or more.
lfowles 11y ago
> I only run Windows on virtual machines on my Mac desktop and Mac laptop; only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application. Suggestions on VM software? I'm looking into getting my wife set up with Win10 on her Mac.
- dhess 11y ago
  Unless you want to run games, VMware Fusion. Parallels is slightly faster for some use cases other than games, but they lost my business last year when they installed their Parallels Access software without asking me first and without giving users an easy way to uninstall it without also uninstalling Parallels. (Parallels Access is their remote access software, so it potentially opens your Mac up to remote exploits and requires a subscription after a three month trial to boot.)
s73v3r 11y ago
Yes, that's what you're supposed to do. Why would it be any different just because it's a virtual machine as opposed to a real one?
antaviana 11y ago
For this particular use case (i.e. "rare occasion when I need to run the off Windows-only application") I use a 4GB Windows instance in AWS. I only run it when I need it, in my case cost is negligible (in the $1/month range, Windows license inclided), launches a lot faster than VMware Fusion and best of all, my Mac is not slowed down considerably by VMWare Fusion VM image running.

by dhess 11y ago

alkonaut 11y ago

That's what the license terms say for normal retail licenses of the consumer versions, yes. This is pretty understandable for machines run concurrently. If you have two VMs running 24/7 it makes sense to just consider them "machines" exactly as if they were physical. The question is what happens if you have two VMs with identical hardware where you only ever have one active? Microsofts licensing probably doesn't consider this scenario, so I think it would be a matter of interpretation. In theory you could transfer the license back and forth between the VMs (assuming that stopping and unmounting the inactive VM disk counts as "removing the software" from that machine).

toyg 11y ago
That's technically correct, but they could still shout at you when carrying out a review, because you cannot technically guarantee you're running only one at the time.
- jwr 11y ago
  Is it really the customer's responsibility to technically guarantee that the licensing cannot be breached? I can't technically guarantee that my system hasn't been duplicated (say, by the NSA), but that isn't my responsibility. I'm just not supposed to run two copies simultaneously.

toyg 11y ago

> Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create That is indeed the case. Otherwise you can buy licenses meant for ISPs and cloud-hosting providers. Your "personal use of multiple VMs" is simply not contemplated. You could probably get by with a MSDN subscription, which gives you some leeway.

dhess 11y ago
Thanks for the reply. What does an MSDN subscription permit with respect to running multiple VMs? Edit: sounds like pretty much whatever you want.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Whatever you want, for development purposes only. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/584162/what-is-the-windows-server-environment-limit-on-an-msdn-subscription http://stackoverflow.com/questions/584162/what-is-the-window... http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/05/31/msdn-subscriptions-pt-1/ http://www.itassetmanagement.net/2011/05/31/msdn-subscriptio... : there is a lot of fractal madness in this. "This applies to virtual machines as well – so if even one application on one virtual machine hosted on a physical server is used for production purposes, then ALL the virtual machines AND the physical host must be licensed as if they were production machines." "Training is NOT considered a development activity, so all those being trained and the machines used for the training must be licensed appropriately." may be one of the reasons nobody ever gets any training in this business.
e12e 11y ago
The 2012 Server Datacenter Edition is a mere ~6000 USD and allows to run unlimited VMs on up to two physical CPUs. Who ever claimed the licensing costs made a real difference between Microsoft and Linux?
- sudioStudio64 11y ago
  They only require a license for VM's that run Windows. You can run as many non-windows VM's as you want on the free hyper-v server on as many procs as it will run on.

hpaavola 11y ago

According to http://download.microsoft.com/Documents/UseTerms/Windows%207_Ultimate_English_c44ca3df-8338-4a2f-a176-39d2e68986c4.pdf http://download.microsoft.com/Documents/UseTerms/Windows%207... Use with Virtualization Technologies. Instead of using the software directly on the licensed computer, you may install and use the software within only one virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed computer.

pjc50 11y ago

Microsoft expects me to buy a separate, full Windows license for each virtual machine I create, for each host machine I run it on. Yes, that's what the license says. In practice, what corporate VM users do is get MSDN licenses, which are assigned to the developer. I have one. It's basically a license to not worry about licensing: I can run as many copies of whatever I like, so long as it's "for testing and development purposes". I think there's a different volume licensing programme available if, god help you, you wanted to run a production datacentre on Windows. Edit: this is obviously a big reason why Windows is never going anywhere in the cloud space outside of Azure.

dhess 11y ago
Thanks. That's what I was afraid the answer would be. The cheapest MSDN subscription (OS-only) is $699/yr. For that price I could buy about 6 copies of Windows 10 Home edition. Or 2 new laptops each with a Windows license included. Sheesh.
- jleight 11y ago
  True, but I don't think anyone really buys an MSDN subscription just for installing a copy of Windows. I haven't looked into the actual licensing terms, but my MSDN subscription (not the cheapest version) only allows me to claim five license keys per Windows version through the UI. If you need six licenses just to make up the cost of the cheapest MSDN subscription, you're probably using your MSDN subscription incorrectly. Generally if you have an MSDN subscription, you're using it for other products like Visual Studio, and the free copies of Windows are just for helping you get a development environment set up.

nly 11y ago

Same boat. I bought a laptop with W7 on it, and it's still installed, but I only ever use Windows via a pirated copy in a VM I'll probably, eventually be using a pirate copy of W10 in a VM as well, despite being entitled to run a copy natively.

ikeboy 11y ago

>only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application. If you're using it rarely, why not use the trial version, and reset to a snapshot whenever you use it? You can save data on a separate virtual disk, and only reset the operating system disk. There used to be VMs at https://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/ https://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/. I don't see Windows 10 there right now, not sure why, but I know I've downloaded from there before; maybe wait a few weeks or so.

currysausage 11y ago
Would that actually work? Wouldn't the trial version still notice that it was initialized more than 90 days ago? I don't want to initialize the OS whenever I use it.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  It doesn't take that long to initialize, and you only need to do it every 90 days. If you get the pre-installed VM, it only takes a couple minutes from first boot to ready to use. Besides, I think you can "rearm" and use for another 90 days or more.

lfowles 11y ago

> I only run Windows on virtual machines on my Mac desktop and Mac laptop; only for personal use; and only on the rare occasion when I need to run the odd Windows-only application. Suggestions on VM software? I'm looking into getting my wife set up with Win10 on her Mac.

dhess 11y ago
Unless you want to run games, VMware Fusion. Parallels is slightly faster for some use cases other than games, but they lost my business last year when they installed their Parallels Access software without asking me first and without giving users an easy way to uninstall it without also uninstalling Parallels. (Parallels Access is their remote access software, so it potentially opens your Mac up to remote exploits and requires a subscription after a three month trial to boot.)

s73v3r 11y ago

Yes, that's what you're supposed to do. Why would it be any different just because it's a virtual machine as opposed to a real one?

antaviana 11y ago

For this particular use case (i.e. "rare occasion when I need to run the off Windows-only application") I use a 4GB Windows instance in AWS. I only run it when I need it, in my case cost is negligible (in the $1/month range, Windows license inclided), launches a lot faster than VMware Fusion and best of all, my Mac is not slowed down considerably by VMWare Fusion VM image running.