I would like to know whether anyone has actually installed vista home basic on a mac parallels virtual machine. Will it run without problems and update OK?
It should run like any other Vista installation inside VM, except, yes, it's illegal, including Home Premium.
If anyone gave an answer that was non-theoretical anyway, ksn, if Parallels were responsible they would delete it... Just thought I'd add that.
Because Microsoft's EULA for Vista Home (Basic & Premium) specifically prohibits such act. It's a bit like how Apple prohibits installing OS X on non-Apple hardware.
After a bit of googling, it seems this whole thing is open to interpretation. Most people are taking it to mean that you cannot install Vista Home on a physical machine as well as a virtual one. See http://blog.gartner.com/blog/vista.php?itemid=1603 - just an example there are many others. In any case, the EULA is exactly what it says, an agreement not a legally binding document. Do you know anyone who has actually read one. Ignorance is bliss I'd be interested to see one stand up in a court. Hippo
we had this arguement a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, in the U.S., EULAs have stood up in court. If they display a page that shows the EULA with "Accept" and "Decline" buttons, clicking "Accept" marks a legally valid contract. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/22/vista_eula_worries/ is a good read, it shows a couple of exmaples of EULAs being held up in court. On the whole, as long as the EULA clearly tells you what will happen to the software or you, should you not adhear to the EULA, then the courts will favour the manufacturer rather than the licencee.
Unless Parallels has implemented an internal blocking mechanism for the Windows Home editions (as they've apparently done for OS X), there's no technical reason why they couldn't be installed. After all, a VM is intended to appear as physical hardware to any OS running under it. I believe that MS has a very good reason behind banning the use of virtualized Home editions: increased support calls coming from people who don't fully appreciate the limitations of virtualization. MS has put a lot of effort into supporting the latest USB gizmos, creating a robust gaming platform and enhancing the Windows UI with features requiring accelerated and/or 3-D graphics. As impressive as the current state of the virtualization art is, many of the most aggressively-marketed features of Windows just don't work under virtualization (yet).
BTW - I hope my last post didn't come off sounding like I'm down on virtualization. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've been using virtualization products for 6-7 years and I currently do all my work as a software dev on XP virtualized under Parallels on a Mac. I think it's great that more and more people are seeing the benefits of this kind of tool. It is, however, just a tool, and all tools have their benefits and limitations.
True, but a contract carries weight in the U.S., as pointed out, IF it is accepted by interaction of the party. To say a EULA doesn't carry weight because it is an agreement and not a legal document is like saying your promise to little jimmy down the road doesn't have to be kept because you didn't sign a legal document. I know, harsh analogy, but I think it makes the point... To say that because it is so lengthy people shouldn't be held to it is off base as well... Imagine the hordes of taxes people would pay without complex business planning models. If those documents were nullified because of their overbearing complexity the economy would collapse under Uncle Sam or under sleazy business men who back out of their contracts.
