xp licensing

To the OP,

The bottom line is this. It doesn't really matter whether you agree with
the way Microsoft handles licencing, or whether you think it is fair or
unfair. That is the way it is, and while pouring your heart out in a
newgroup might make you feel better, it is unlikely to change anything.

 

The license for Word or Office doesn't prevent you from running it multiple
times on one machine, it restricts you from installing it on multiple
machines. As a Programmer you know you can write your code to only allow 1
instance of it to be run at a time. If Microsoft didn't want you to run it
multiple times on a single machine the code would prevent it, not the
license.

 

Actually, unlike the license for an OS, the license for Office allows for
the concurrent installation on 2 computers.

 

Your right Paul, it does allow for installation on 2 machines, I'd forgotten
that little caveat.

 

Only the retail version, and it must be one desktop and one laptop used by
the owner of the license, OEM only allows a single install.

 

It's bizarre to argue that each VM is a computer - it's a simulation of a
computer on shared hardware. If I fire up several copies of my licensed Word,
am I using multiple licences, or one? Just the one, I think.

If MS wants to get into virtualisation in a big way they need to think this
through more carefully - there are alternatives that have much more flexible
licence arrangements. For virtualisation on servers one licence=one VM+one
guest OS might be a reasonable proposition, because the VMs will have
different users. But for a desktop PC to require a licence for each guest OS

 

This argument has been repeated here as nauseum and with the same result.
Nada. No amount of arguing about it here matters. What matters is what MS
decides. If you want more flexibility then use Windows Server 2003
Enterprise Edition as a host. If you have a suggestion for a change in vm
licensing for client hosts then tell MS.