Virtualizing Windows Vista

[sebastian at when.com]

Henning Larsen wrote:
> On Sun, 2008-02-24 at 12:35 -0600, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
>> Henning Larsen wrote:
>>> On Sun, 2008-02-24 at 11:53 -0600, Steven Stern wrote:
>>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>>
>>>> It sure would be nice to run Windows Vista on my Linux desktop for a few
>>>> work-related tasks.  This machine already dual-boots. I want to be able
>>>> to copy/paste from one environment to the other.
>>>>
>>>> Wine provides an emulation environment -- I'm looking for real Windows.
>>>>
>>>> I've read about Xen and we're using VMWare Enterprise at the office.
>>>> I'm unclear about the first, and I can't afford the second for a home
>>>> solution.
>>>>
>>>> Is this something anyone is doing on Fedora? If so, what are your
>>>> recommendations and caveats?
>>>>
>>> You can use vmware-serve which is free, or use qemu, kvm, xen which is
>>> included in fedora, depending on your processor's capabilities.
>>>
>> Isn't there also a restriction on what versions of Vista you can 
>> virtualize? I remember reading something about Vista home not 
>> working. (Microsoft restriction.)
>>
>> Mikkel
> 
> I think it is about what you are allowed to do, myself I don't care and
> have virtualized the home premium version. BTW isn't it hard for an os
> to know it's running virtualized?
> 
> Henning  
> 

Well, here [1] is an article on CNET on it. I think you're allowed, to 
run Windows Vista virtualized. But with some versions, you need to 
purchase another license key (if you want to run it virtualized & real). 
On the other hand, AFAIK, you're allowed to run the Enterprise (the one 
for large businesses) or the Ultimate version virtualized without 
purchasing a new product key. But concerning this, I'm not really sure, 
so I recommend you to look it up first...

Sebastian

[1] http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9854621-56.html