Legal aspects of virtual machines

Question

My normal pc is currently under 'repair' due to me uninstalling a bunch of apps in an attempt to fix an old app that failed in certain situations and causing a looping screen of blue death.

Now I've been asking for the ability to have virtual machines so I can do testing of legacy software in a safe and controlled manner and not worry about currently installed apps/services hiding the symptoms since I joined here and this incident is ammo for my cause.

However I get shot down saying that I would need a license of XP for every copy I have installed on my machine. I think this is wrong (Scott Hanselman freely admits to using multiple Win7 installs - or is this just a Win7 license thing?) but have no evidence to back up my claims.

What is the legalities of running virtual machines - XP in particular - for the purpose of testing?

Answer 1

As you can get VM's on the Microsoft site which have XP and IE on them (the operating system often 'expires' after a few weeks/months) I guess that covers the legalities.

These VPC images are designed for testing and expire on 1 July 2010 - there can be no issue using them.

Overview

This download page contains different VPC images, depending on what you want to test.

IE6-on-XP-SP3.exe contains a Windows XP SP3 with IE6 VHD file. Expires July 1, 2010

IE7-on-XP-SP3.exe contains a Windows XP SP3 with IE7 VHD file. Expires July 1, 2010

IE8-on-XP-SP3.exe contains a Windows XP SP3 with IE8 VHD file. Expires July 1, 2010

IE7-VIS1.exe+IE7-VIS2.rar+IE7-VIS3.rar contain a Vista Image with IE7 VHD file. Expires 120 days after first run.

IE8-VIS1.exe+IE8-VIS2.rar+IE8-VIS3.rar+IE8-VIS4.rar contain a Vista Image with IE8 VHD file. Expires 120 days after first run.

Note: For The Vista image, you will need files in that set, downloaded and in the same directory, then run the EXE in the root directory.

Answer 2

You need to purchase a Microsoft Technet subscription, you get (nearly unlimited) licenses of almost all Microsoft applications and operating systems for testing and development (i.e. non-Production) use only. You just log in to the website, click a button labeled "get license" each time you need another license for a new VM.

There's an expensive subscription (which includes Visual Studio licenses) for developers, and the cheaper version which we use for each member in the test/support/QA teams.

Note that while you have access to plenty of licenses, according to the Microsoft rep I spoke with each person that accesses or uses the installed software is also required to have a technet subscription.