EULA

Diskeeper Offers Complimentary License for XP Mode on Windows 7

July 2, 2009 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Diskeeper Corporation announced today that their End User Licence Agreement (EULA) has been updated to allow an additional complimentary license of Diskeeper 2009 for Microsoft’s elite and business customers of Windows 7’s XP mode.

The latest Microsoft operating system will use desktop virtualization in its Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate editions so that customers will be able to run Windows XP compatible applications on their Windows 7 machines. Windows XP mode will be delivered as a free, out-of-band update to encourage users to make the switch to Microsoft’s forthcoming operating system.

Diskeeper Corporation’s recent EULA update signifies additional help to Microsoft and hardware OEMs to support customer upgrades. In the future, Windows 7 customers will be able to purchase Diskeeper Corporation’s products together with a complimentary licence specifically for use on XP Mode only.

Windows 7 Beta 1 Seems Virtualization-Ready

January 2, 2009 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

From MaximumPC:

Although the official release of Beta 1 of Windows 7 isn’t expected until early January, a leaked copy of what looks like Beta 1’s been making the rounds on the Internet for a few days. ZDNet’s Ed Bott has spent some “quality time” with the build, and reports some interesting tidbits from the EULA:

The revision ID at the end of the EULA is: Win7_B.1_PRO_NRL_en-US – so it sure sounds like Beta 1 is on the loose.
There’s no limit on the number of installs you can perform, but they stop working on August 1.
Redmond says you can’t use Beta 1 in a production environment.
You can install Beta 1 in a virtual machine instead of a normal installation, but only one VM per hardware device.
Potential privacy concerns (such as Customer Experience Improvement Program and automatic error reporting) are turned on by default, but you can turn them off if you prefer.
Beta 1 must be activated.
Releasing benchmark test results to third parties without Microsoft’s prior written agreement is not permitted.

Microsoft Opened Up Virtualization For Vista Under Court Pressure

March 11, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Earlier this year, Microsoft surprisingly flip-flopped its earlier decision not to allow users to run Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium as guest operating systems on a virtual machine. According to Computerworld, court documents now prove MS did this because of a complaint filed with antitrust regulators.

According to a status report filed with U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, Microsoft changed the end-user licensing agreements (EULA) of Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium under pressure from Phoenix Technologies Ltd. Phoenix, best known for the BIOS, or firmware, that it sells to PC makers, had filed a complaint with regulators sometime after early November 2007, arguing that Microsoft should open the less-expensive versions of Vista to virtualization.

Although the report didn’t name the Phoenix virtualization product, it was referring to HyperSpace, technology that the company unveiled in November 2007. HyperSpace embeds a Linux-based hypervisor in the computer’s BIOS that allows the computer to run open-source software without booting Windows. A little more than two months after Phoenix filed its complaint, Microsoft gave in. “After discussion with the Plaintiff States and the three-person technical committee that assists in monitoring Microsoft’s compliance, Microsoft agreed to remove the EULA restrictions, and has done so,” the status report said.

Unfortunately, Phoenix Technologies and Microsoft declined to comment about the complaint and the changes to virtualization in Vista.