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Possible Duplicate:
Can you help me with my software licensing question?

I'd like to install Windows 7 Pro as a VM on our ESXi server. Unfortunately Microsoft has made things extremely confusing and I don't know which type of license is required to do this. Will the OEM version suffice for this purpose or do I need the retail version?

Thanks,

Dan

Community
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Dan
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2 Answers2

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As far as I know, there are only two differences between OEM and box versions:

  1. you don't get MS support
  2. you can't move the OS from one PC to the other (when you upgrade hardware)

As such, it is OK to run OEM Win7 virtualized as long as you don't use live migration.

Alicja Kario
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Are you a company?

Shame on your.

Will the OEM version suffice for this purpose or do I need the retail version?

You need licensed veryions. You can run a VM on a computer with Windows 7, and legally a OEM version is tied to the computer it came from, so if you buy something with Win7, you can install ESX ON THAT MACHINE and then run Windows 7 PEM on that one. If you can get it running.

Otherwise, your company should not deal with retail licenses. MS Select licensing under contract gives good rebates and is available for smaller companies.

TomTom
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