Virtual PC is free!

Today we announced a couple of cool things:

  1. Virtual PC 2004 SP1 will be available free - now!

  2. Virtual PC 2007 will be available for free in 2007, with support for Microsoft Windows Vista

  3. Windows Vista Enterprise customers will have the right to install four copies of the operating system on a desktop for a single user

A couple of questions I can see people having are:

  1. Why are you giving Virtual PC away for free?

    Microsoft views virtualization as a tool. Virtual PC is used for a number of reasons, but the primary reasons are for development and test scenarios and application compatibility. We already provide Virtual PC as part of MSDN for development and test users, and given that all our other application compatibility tools are free - charging for Virtual PC did not make much sense.

  2. Is the Windows Vista Enterprise licensing right restricted to Virtual PC?

    No - you can use any virtualization software for this. In fact - you do not even have to use virtualization software to exercise this right. You could - if you wanted - setup a quad-boot physical computer and be licensed for all four instances.

Well - enough talk - go check out the details and download Virtual PC from https://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc

Cheers,
Ben