Question about virtualization

I am about to get into virtualization and the most confusing part of it for me at this point is regarding licencing.

I understand that if you create a virtual machine that will be used on an other host you need a licence (full retail not previously activated) but do you also need a new licence if you are creating a VM that is a replica of an existing real world machine and will only be used on the PC that the VM was taken from? The purpose of creating this VM would be for testing so an exact replica would be nec to determine if there would be any conflicts.

Also, can a VM of the sort described above be used to restore/replace the OS and software/files etc in the event of a problem with the physical machine? Again on the same exact hardware and software that the VM was created from?

 

That's a very good question,that I'd like to know the answer to myself.

It could be argued that if you create an virtualized copy of your existing system,only to be run upon said physical system,then technically you're still only using that licence on one physical system.Were you to export that image onto a different pc,then,as you've stated,you'd be in breach of the T&C.

That's only my opinion though,not sure how Microsoft would view it.

 

I have posted this question over on the VMware Workstation forum. I will report what I learn there below as soon as I learn it.

 

Great,it'll be good to get clarification.