Virtual Machine OS Licensing

Since it seems like the majority of the board utilizes VM's, what's the best/most economical way to handle Windows licensing?

Are most people just buying full editions of Windows 7? Buying Window 8 and using downgrade licensse? Is VLK or Windows Software assurance a good option (~20 licenses)?

Our company just uses the volume licensing agreement. I've heard of smaller companies just purchasing individual editions of Windows.

From what I understand, the licensing of Windows 7 and older in a VM is a little fuzzy. Do you need one license per VM, whether on or off? Do you need one license per running instance of Windows? If you have two hard drives for a computer with different software on them, can you use the same windows license for both?

I think the answers to questions like that are detailed a lot better in the server versions of Windows, where the license allows you to run a few VM copies as well.

To be honest, I'm pretty sure what many people do is get one legal copy of windows, install it in the VM, and then clone it for everyone they know. This definitely worked with XP, and I think it works with 7 as well, and I'm fairly certain it isn't 100% legal for either.

A V/M is a machine in the eyes of M$. One per "machine" to be legal. S/A is indeed the only viable (available?) option any more.

Server licensing is indeed spelled out, but I certainly wouldn't say its any clearer. There are teams of folks that handle that stuff.
SQL Server for example just changed to per core licensing instead of per socket and the V/M permutations of that in a large org with dynamic core allocations will make your head spin.

TheWaterboy said:

A V/M is a machine in the eyes of M$. One per "machine" to be legal. S/A is indeed the only viable (available?) option any more.

Server licensing is indeed spelled out, but I certainly wouldn't say its any clearer. There are teams of folks that handle that stuff.
SQL Server for example just changed to per core licensing instead of per socket and the V/M permutations of that in a large org with dynamic core allocations will make your head spin.

Click to expand...

Fair point, clearer probably isn't the right word. I was referring to Windows Server, not SQL server, but what I meant to say was probably more along the lines of "easier to be legal". Probably still debatable, though.

Every iteration I think they could not make it any more confusing... but every year they exceed my expectations.

I guess its like welfare, the legit folks pay more to support those who pay nothing.

I did quite a bit of research on this topic and the conclusion is to either buy more license or get Volume (Enterprise) Licensing.

Would one have multiple VM's running at the same time? You could, but practically?

Set up VM 1 with license, make it to where you got one bare machine running that is up to date. Then copy it as many times you need VM's.

Perhaps it is not a 100% according to "rules", but as a small business owner I cannot afford 5 separate licenses (read: I do not want to spend the money).

I do the same thing for Siemens. I've got old versions of TIA and WinCC running on virtual machines just so I can update from protool, through two versions of WinCC flex, through a couple of TIA versions to latest and greatest. (Worst thing is that this actually works)

What you describe is certainly reasonable use covered under a similar rule that said you could have a copy of a program on your personal desktop and your personal laptop and still be compliant. You are using all these VM's yourself and that's a reasonable accommodation.

M$ believes though that if you are making money off multiple copies, in whatever way you are using them, they want their piece for providing you the ability to do that. This policy is obviously meant for larger entities but the EULA does not distinguish any difference so the option to enforce is theirs.

I usually buy SQL server on a per CPU basis, and OS's licensed for "Two VM's".

I don't think you have the option with SQL 2016.