Comments on: Only high end Vistas work on Virtual Machines

By: Victor

Victor — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:16:03 +0000

No one in charge of running a corporate enterprise would willingly deal with Vista as soon as it comes out. That's why Macs are not common in those environments including those running parallels. Longhorn was full of security holes and those offices that will open up their network to Vista laptop units will have to deal with entirely new issues in user support. This may well translate to technical training dollars on Vista in the future.

By: John Lockwood

John Lockwood — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 13:12:50 +0000

This is not a technical limitation merely Microsoft [once again] gouging customers. Even lowly XP Home works in a Virtual Machine.

On top of that Microsoft are charging almost DOUBLE the US price here in the UK for Vista.

See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/31/nvista31.xml

Ever since Apple announced the move to Intel, I have been planning to use this to make it easier for some of our users to run MS Project and MS Visio. However rather than than be ripped off by Microsoft over Windows costs (which Boot Camp, Parallels and VM Ware, all require), I plan to instead use CrossOver Mac from CodeWeavers thus allowing me to tell Microsoft to stick Windows where the sun does not shine and to save literally a small fortune.

… And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Windows Vista, and WMP11 followed with him. And power was given unto them over 95% of computers, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of Redmond …

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 01:32:49 +0000

I’m guessing this applies to virtualizing the OS on Microsoft’s own platform too, ya? If that’s the case, then the software giant has just raised the total cost of virtualization. Ironic when virtualization – server consolidation or test & dev – was suppose to reduce cost.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 21:58:29 +0000

Why would you need to install it in a virtual machine? Can't you create a second partition and install it normally? Or just wipe the drive and install it outright?

By: David

David — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:05:45 +0000

Except for Xbox, when was the last time Microsoft did something really great? I thought it was best to delight your customers rather than piss them off at every turn.

By: stevenk

stevenk — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:39:15 +0000

It doesn't work well yet using parallels (Intel Mac Pro). There's still some bugs that parallels needs to work out on video drivers. The vista install (xp upgrade) on my other box was smooth, very fast, and actually pretty slick. They did a great job with the driver updating and the partitioning. I don't know what everyone's complaining about.

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:20:32 +0000

Has anyone actually tried to run Vista using this method. Given the higher overhead for Vista, does this work well? On the same point, can one still buy XP?

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:19:59 +0000

Why would you need Vista on Mac?

For QA and testing, I would hope.

What's your best route to acquiring Microsoft software for testing?

Buy an MSDN License. At around ~$2k/year, you'll get disks with every OS, every flavor of Office, Server and Development products, etc etc. With the direction Vista and Office prices are heading, it's your best bet to get it all.