Microsoft Has Barred the Usage of Vista in Mac's Virtualization Program

Microsoft Vista, the latest Microsoft Operating System, has finally launched into the market. According to Microsoft's licensing rules, Microsoft has barred its Home Basic and Premium editions from being run in virtualization programs. Initially Mac users are able to switch back and forth between Apple's Mac OS X operating system and Windows.

Microsoft is making it pretty hard for Mac users to fully adopt the software. On the other hand, Microsoft says that this move is necessary for security reasons. But whatever reasons it was, there's no clear explanation from Microsoft. In Vista's 14-page licensing rules, it is clearly stated that Microsoft banned the usage of the Basic and Premium editions to run in virtualization programs. Instead, users that wished to run Vista in virtualization programs have to buy the Business or the Ultimate package.

Apparently, virtualization programs act like an emulator which in this case, enables a Mac to mimic multiple machines with different operating systems. These operating systems will run simultaneously in separate realms of the computer. Initially virtualization has been widely used in servers to increase efficiency.

Parallels have been marketing their virtualization product for quite some time. Parallels' virtualization product enables a Mac user to run Windows in a window on the Mac desktop. This is pretty convenient for a Mac user to switch between the operating system. On the other hand, Microsoft has its own virtualization software - Virtual PC. Virtual PC is available to download for free.

In the quest to outdo each other in the microprocessor market, Intel and AMD have designed chips that have built-in virtualization friendly processors. According to reports, although this would increase better virtualization performance, it has serious security loopholes. One of such security risks involves malicious programs running undetected alongside an operating system.