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Microsoft Expands Vista Enterprise Licensing To Fit VDI And OS Streaming Usage

Wednesday, 04 April 2007 by Michel Roth

Microsoft has stepped up to the plate and adapted the Vista licensing terms to fit popular and emerging technologies to deploy operating systems. Last week, at the Microsoft Management Summit 2007 (MMS 2007), Microsoft detailed the upcoming availability of licensing for two new centralized architectures based on Windows Vista Enterprise Edition. These new licensing possibilities basically boil down to Microsoft allowing you to "deploy" Windows Vista with VDI or OS Streaming. The OS streaming licensing addition is free for Software Assurance customers but it seems you'll have to pay extra (next to Software Assurance) for using Windows Vista in VDI environments. This seems kind of confusing as Brian Madden mentions.

Microsoft describes these new licensing possibilities as: "For Software Assurance customers using Windows Vista Enterprise, were adding two new ways to license and deploy the operating system. These two new ways to license Windows Vista are:

1) The license right to use Windows Vista on diskless PCs
This would be streaming Windows Vista to your local machine in a Ardence or Wyse Streaming Manager kind of way. The license to use diskless PCs is available at no charge for Windows Vista Enterprise customers. Clarification: you need to have Software Assurance for this.

2) The availability of a subscription license called Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktops (VECD) which allows customers to use Windows in virtual machines centralized on server hardware.
This basically allow you to use Windows Vista in VDI environments. VECD is available to Software Assurance customers for an annual, per-device subscription fee. The fee varies based on whether your business is licensing PCs or thin client.

Read more in this Microsoft Presspass QA.