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Licensing, VMware Fusion, and Bootcamp
I have run into a situation that I am confused about. I am thinking about calling my company's MS licensing rep to work it out but I wanted to run it through here first. It could also lead to more clarity for licensing virtual machines.
I have an iMac at home with VMware Fusion. I bought a license of Windows 7 Home Premium for it and that works fine. I want to use Bootcamp to be able to have a native Windows session. Sometimes it helps with consulting to be able to have more than a virtual machine.
Do I need to buy another copy of Windows 7 to do this? I don't fully understand how virtual licensing vs physical licensing works. To me it's running on the same machine so one license should do it but I want to stay in compliance as much as possible, even if the MS Police probably won't bust down my door.
I have an iMac at home with VMware Fusion. I bought a license of Windows 7 Home Premium for it and that works fine. I want to use Bootcamp to be able to have a native Windows session. Sometimes it helps with consulting to be able to have more than a virtual machine.
Do I need to buy another copy of Windows 7 to do this? I don't fully understand how virtual licensing vs physical licensing works. To me it's running on the same machine so one license should do it but I want to stay in compliance as much as possible, even if the MS Police probably won't bust down my door.
I finally started that blog - www.thomgreene.com
Comments
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OptionsRTmarc Member Posts: 1,082 ■■■□□□□□□□What I would do is blow away your virtual 7 machine, load 7 on a bootcamp partition, and you're done. From within OSX, using VMware Fusion, you can mount and utilize the bootcamp partition. It will load up like a typical virtual machine. When you want to run Windows natively, restart the machine and boot into the bootcamp partition.
I do this on my own MBP. -
Optionstbgree00 Member Posts: 553 ■■■■□□□□□□I guess from a licensing standpoint that would be legal. I didn't know that function existed in VMware. I assume it keeps your VM and bootcamp partition in sync too which would be nice.I finally started that blog - www.thomgreene.com
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OptionsHyper-Me Banned Posts: 2,059Ah yes. Making Mac's into decent computers, one Windows 7 installation at a time.
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OptionsRTmarc Member Posts: 1,082 ■■■□□□□□□□I guess from a licensing standpoint that would be legal. I didn't know that function existed in VMware. I assume it keeps your VM and bootcamp partition in sync too which would be nice.
It actually uses the bootcamp partition. So, when you are booted into OS X and fire up Fusion it will be actually accessing that partition. Any changes you make while in Fusion would be the same as having booted natively into Win7. -
Optionsjamesstill Member Posts: 9 ■□□□□□□□□□Be careful with the dual access to VMs. MS Software has a nasty habit of requiring reactivation when you launch it via the other method, Boot Camp or VMWare / Parallels access.
It's because the physical hardware appears to have changed.
my personal suggestion - get an old XP licence to use in a VM - lower memory footprint and it will do everything you need (probably) - and Boot Camp Windows 7.
If the software licence says you can only install it on one computer, technically that's still true
James -
Optionstiersten Member Posts: 4,505I'm not a lawyer but I believe you'd be okay...
What James said anyway. Windows will be deeply unhappy with you changing the hardware like that and will require reactivation which generally means a phone call. -
OptionsRTmarc Member Posts: 1,082 ■■■□□□□□□□Occasionally it will ask you to reactivate when you boot to the bootcamp partition but it has never failed to go straight through.