Virtualizing Windows on Ubuntu

[Matthew Gillen]

John Abreau wrote:
> This question came up at work last year, and as I recall,
> Microsoft had claimed that the OEM license for a laptop
> could not be used for a VM, and that we had to purchase
> a separate XP license for each VM we create.

And to rub salt in the wound, I'm guessing they refused to refund the OEM
version that came with the laptop, even though you clearly weren't going to be
using it, right?

This kind of baloney is one of the reasons I stick to FOSS whenever possible.
There are lots of better reasons, but these kind of headaches are something I
go out of my way to avoid.  Issues like
 - a license for each (potentially runnable) snapshot you take of the filesystem?
 - how would a copy-on-write (COW) version be licensed?  (since you can't
change the license key once it's installed)

Better to sidestep the whole thing.  Unless your apps use .NET (a
distressingly common occurrence nowadays), you're better off just using wine.
 It'll perform better, use less memory, etc.
</rant>

Matt