Windows XP activation and virtual machines explained

Lately virtualization software became more accessible for any of us. Especially if you are a developer you may find virtualization software very helpful for testing your application in different environments with less effort. For Windows the most popular choices are VMware and Virtual PC. Even if there are many free software solutions you may find that running a virtual Windows machine is not as free as it looks (and I think that's why Microsoft affords to offer Virtual PC for free). If you read your license agreement you will find that you have to buy a new license for each Windows virtual machine (VM) you want to run. For older Windows versions you may have simply not noticed this because your serial # will work in every VM but for Windows XP the product activation comes into place. For Vista there is the possibility to have 1 host and 4 VMs with a single license but only for Vista Ultimate released under Software Assurance. Here are some common scenarios you may have run into:

• You installed Windows XP on the VM, used the same serial # as guest and the activation worked without problems. Well, even if it looks good it's not. The fact that activation worked indicated Microsoft that you replaced your old computer with a new one. And that's not what you intended and you may run into problems updating your guest (original) system.
• You tried to install the Windows XP copy from an old computer you are not using anymore and it didn't work. That's because most OEM copies are looked to work only on the hardware they were supplied with.
• You have more than one license (MSDN subscriber for example) but you don't want to burn one license/VM install and activate them every time. Well, there is a solution but nobody seems to know if it's legal or not. Create a VM, install Windows and activate it then make a backup of the file. Now every time you need a new VM just copy the files from the backup and use them.

So, if you want to run your Windows VMs on a Windows guest legally you will need at least two licenses. I don't think this is fair but hey, that's the way it is.

Update: it seems that every copy of Win2003 R2 Enterprise Edition allows you to run up to four virtual machines. Good start but it will still cost you $3,999 :)
Update 2: Microsoft itself has released a free Virtual PC image download which includes Windows XP SP2. This VPC image will expire on 04/01/2007.

Virtual PC 2007 Beta

I didn't expect Micrsoft to release anoter FREE version of Virtual PC. However they announced in a recent press release a new version (2007) and there is a beta version to download. There are not many articles regarding this release for the moment but we can find from their beta page some of the new features, mainly regarding Windows Vista support:

• Hardware-assisted virtualization
  Virtual PC 2007 includes support for virtualization technology from Intel and AMD. By default, hardware-assisted virtualization is enabled if the feature is enabled on the physical computer. You can turn this assistance on or off for each virtual machine by modifying the virtual machine settings.
• Support for Windows Vista as a host operating system
  This beta release of Virtual PC 2007 introduces support for Windows Vista as a host operating system. The following versions of Windows Vista are supported: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate.
• Support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system
  This beta release of Virtual PC 2007 introduces support for Windows Vista as a guest operating system. The following versions of Windows Vista are supported: Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate.
• Support for 64-bit host operating system
  This beta release of Virtual PC 2007 supports 64-bit host operating systems. However, there is no support for 64-bit guest operating systems.
  

Personaly I think Vmware Workstation is a better product for developers but it's not free (~$189). So thumbs up for the new version!