They do, however, only license their OS to run on Apple-branded computers. This is not simply a draconian anticompetitive thing. It is the core of the Mac philosophy. The reason they can make such an amazingly smooth, excellent, advanced OS is that they don't have to account for every possibe hardware configuration that some jerk in his basement can come up with. Instead, they can optimize their system to only run on a handful of existing Macs for which they know every little detail.
The iPod is the same way. You can't send music from iTunes to a Zune, and you can't use some junky jukebox software to load up your iPod. This allows Apple to make the experience of both iPod and iTunes much better than if they had to account for the kajillions of mp3 players out there. (And if they opened it up like that, I doubt the record labels would let them sell their songs.)
You can complain all you want about this... and 94% of people think it isn't worth the cost and go and buy Windows. The other 6% would rather have a computer they don't have to fight like crazy and don't seem to mind that they are forced to only buy one of a handful of sexy, high-quality, elegant, moderately-priced computers.
Doesn't the wording of the licencing for Vista mean that with Vista Home one may not run the same licence in virtual machine? So that to run a virtualisation of Vista Home requires two licenced products while if one had Vista Premium one could run a virtualised version of Vista using the product licence (i.e.: one would not be required to buy another licence? It would seem to be the intent behind the wording.
In effect, if one bought/had an unused Vista Home licence one could install that as a VM on an Apple Computer computer. One should hope so, anyhow.
"You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device," the company wrote in the licensing agreements for the higher-priced systems. So device=the hardware computer (the product key licenced to the physical mahine) may not be used again in a virtual environment -unless one have Premium Biz edition.
No. it's quite clear as to what they mean. Only the two higher priced versions will be allowed to run under a virtualized system.
This makes sense, really.
MS is interested in virtualized systems for multi cpu servers. No one runs Home OS's on those. MS is making it clear that they only want professional installations running virtualized.
Besides, anyone using a professional system doesn't need phone support. They can buy an OEM version of the software at much less cost by purchasing a SATA cable with it.
Fascinating... But I'm still not sold on the practicality to implement something like this. There must be some authority in charge of ensuring that the resources used by one OS (filesystem and memory) are truly distinct from the resources used by the other OS. The argument could probably be made that that authority is acting as an "other form of emulation"... (That wording is open to a pretty broad range of possible definitions)
Cpu hardware virtualization ensures that.
Quote:
I personally know several folk whose software development goes on as a hobby, or otherwise without the direct support of Microsoft. They use virtualization just like the big boys. Currently, if they want to obey their license terms, they must own two complete copies of any Windows XP edition. Possibly with Vista, they'll be able to own just one copy (one of the Pro versions) and the virtualized copy of the OS for cleanroom testing would be included in the original purchase price. Sorta renders the "multiple licenses" portion of the special MSDN EULA obsolete, doesn't it...
That would be violating the terms of the license. Only one copy mat be installed at any time. This includes virtualized copies.
. . . on top of only letting me move Vista once and only selling it once?
If I interpret this correctly, it means that my copy of Vista, once resold and used to upgrade another computer, becomes worthless, unusable. That is the end of the line for that copy of Vista, because it cannot be activated ever again on another computer.
Microsoft has invented the ultimate planned obsolescence. Before Vista, things became obsolete when a newer and better replacement product was developed, and the market for the older version eventually dried up naturally, following the laws of economics. Now, Windows OS will self destruct, and eventually people will be forced to buy the newer product because all copies of the older system are garbage and do no work.
Now technically, when someone sells their computer and Vista is installed, does this also count as a sale of the OS? If so, then technically if the computer is sold a second time, the operating system would not be legal, though I don't know how MS could enforce that one if new owners don't report the sale, and try to register Vista in their name.
To me, these changes are much more devastating than not being allowed to run Vista in a virtual machine. Not only does the one sale restriction force more continued updating of the OS, it will eventually make old hardware unusable, at least legally unusable. When today's Vista computers are old, and cannot run the latest Windows OS, they cannot be sold to others multiple times and have a legal OS. Possibly the only legal solution is to downgrade the OS to a version before Vista, which did not have the built-in self destruct feature.
If I interpret this correctly, it means that my copy of Vista, once resold and used to upgrade another computer, becomes worthless, unusable. That is the end of the line for that copy of Vista, because it cannot be activated ever again on another computer.
Yes, that is correct. Microsoft says this was the same with Windows XP, but the EULA did not spell that out.
Note that the EULA for Vista pre-installed on new PCs (90% of their OS sales) is different and allows ZERO transfers to other PCs.
I can only assume that you've misinterpreted the point I was trying to make in my discussion with auxio...
Auxio was advocating the idea that it might be possible to "have his cake and eat it too." Specifically, he was suggesting that some scheme could be devised that didn't use the word "virtualization" and thus bypassed the Vista EULA restritcions, and yet, allowed you to leave both OSes loaded in memory so you didn't need to live with the pains of dual booting.
My position from the start was that such a scheme would either be impossible under the strictest interpretation of the Windows Vista license scheme (since some form of virtualization was going to need to go on in the background even if it was hidden from the end user) or else impractical to the point that it would either be prohibitively difficult to write the code to manage it and you'd end up with a system that was basically no different than a run-of-the-mill dual boot scheme.
Quote:
That would be violating the terms of the license. Only one copy mat be installed at any time. This includes virtualized copies.
I've finally taken the time to read the full text of the Windows Vista Home and Ultimate edition licenses. And now I have to say that it appears you're interpretation is the correct one. It's unfortunate.
But I guess that limitation will never affect me since I wouldn't even consider using the Home editions of Windows Vista for various other reasons. (Mainly because Visual Studio hasn't officially been supported on the "Home" editions of XP so I assume that'll continue to be the case in Vista. And occasionally I need to connect to a Novell network.)
I can only assume that you've misinterpreted the point I was trying to make in my discussion with auxio...
Auxio was advocating the idea that it might be possible to "have his cake and eat it too." Specifically, he was suggesting that some scheme could be devised that didn't use the word "virtualization" and thus bypassed the Vista EULA restritcions, and yet, allowed you to leave both OSes loaded in memory so you didn't need to live with the pains of dual booting.
I didn't misinterpret it. I was pointing out, as it didn't seem to be understood, that the virtualization using these Intel chips is hardware supported. This is completely unlike the virtual schemes in the past. It had been stated that virtualization was simply software when it is not.
I'm not looking back to the post to see who said what, but it was my response to whomever did think it.
Quote:
My position from the start was that such a scheme would either be impossible under the strictest interpretation of the Windows Vista license scheme (since some form of virtualization was going to need to go on in the background even if it was hidden from the end user) or else impractical to the point that it would either be prohibitively difficult to write the code to manage it and you'd end up with a system that was basically no different than a run-of-the-mill dual boot scheme.
I've finally taken the time to read the full text of the Windows Vista Home and Ultimate edition licenses. And now I have to say that it appears you're interpretation is the correct one. It's unfortunate.
But I guess that limitation will never affect me since I wouldn't even consider using the Home editions of Windows Vista for various other reasons. (Mainly because Visual Studio hasn't officially been supported on the "Home" editions of XP so I assume that'll continue to be the case in Vista. And occasionally I need to connect to a Novell network.)
Purely for selfish reasons, I wish Apple would just buy Intuit and fix Quicken on the Mac so I won't ever have to dirty my fingers and run Windows on emulation ever again for the rest of my life.
Give Intuit a break. They could be creating a brand-spanking new version of Quicken that is a UB and can import files created by the Windows version. For good measure, they will make Quicken for Mac and Quicken for Windows have feature parity.
Yeah. I had gleaned most of that from MS's web site several months ago. My gut reaction back then was that Microsoft was trying too hard to over compartmentalize its users with Vista.
Ah, the one-reactivation condition in Vista. It pisses me off. But I'm not certain yet that it's really going to result in an experience that's very much different than the expericences I've personally had with re-activating Windows XP.
If XP it detects that the hardware has evolved to the point that its substantially different from the configuration that was present when Windows was first activated, it will require you to re-activate. ("Substantially different" is a subjective term for a the result of an internal computation based on the hard drive, CPU, MAC address, RAM, etc...)
I have experienced this myself. And I can attest that somebody can activate a single product ID from a retail packaged version of Windows XP exactly twice. If you go beyond that limit, then you must contact Microsoft telephone support to find out if they're feeing charitable enough to let you reactivate again, or if they're going to force you to purchase a new license.
As for computers that have XP pre-installed... Usually, they either come with a system restore CD/DVD, or else they have a preinstalled application which pops up when you first turn it on prompting you to burn one. That system restore disk, after verifying that the hardware is eligible, typically brings the OS back to an already-activated state so re-activation isn't necessary in that case. I guess you're screwed if you ever upgrade the hardware though.
But no Macintosh user is going to have to deal with the OEM Windows Visa activation limitation, since last I heard, Apple has no plans to start selling Macs with Windows pre-installed.
And it's very unlikely that a Mac user would ever need to worry about his hardware changing to the point that Windows would decide to ask for reactivation without reinstallation, judging by the kinds of upgrades I've been allowed to do using XP without re-activation and contrasting this against the sum total set of upgrades that are possible to perform on my Macintosh...
(I'd guess it'd be virtually impossible in the Parallels Desktop virtualization case, since the hosted Windows session would only ever see a fixed "generic" Intel Pentium-class CPU, an i815 chipset, and a generic SVGA/VESA video card.)
I didn't misinterpret it. I was pointing out, as it didn't seem to be understood, that the virtualization using these Intel chips is hardware supported. This is completely unlike the virtual schemes in the past.
Intel has had some form of hardware-supported virtualization ever since the 80386. It was able to support several 8086-based virtual machines with mutually independent and protected memory spaces (both RAM and port-mapped I/O space).
That's how Windows 3.1 running on a 386 was able to cooperatively multitask between Windows- and DOS-based applications. It's not that they magically added multitasking services to DOS... It's just that the virtual machine (the CPU itself was not emulated, only the memory and peripherals connected to it) was bound to a protected-mode Windows process which did support multitasking...
That was not possible when running Windows 3.1 on a 286. Because in order to make it happen on a 286, they would have needed to create a functional 8086 emulator entirely in software, and the DOS applications would have been prohibitively slow.
Note the distinction between "virtual machine" and "emulator" as used in the above paragraphs.
Ah, the one-reactivation condition in Vista. It pisses me off. But I'm not certain yet that it's really going to result in an experience that's very much different than the expericences I've personally had with re-activating Windows XP.
If XP it detects that the hardware has evolved to the point that its substantially different from the configuration that was present when Windows was first activated, it will require you to re-activate. ("Substantially different" is a subjective term for a the result of an internal computation based on the hard drive, CPU, MAC address, RAM, etc...)
I have experienced this myself. And I can attest that somebody can activate a single product ID from a retail packaged version of Windows XP exactly twice. If you go beyond that limit, then you must contact Microsoft telephone support to find out if they're feeing charitable enough to let you reactivate again, or if they're going to force you to purchase a new license.
As for computers that have XP pre-installed... Usually, they either come with a system restore CD/DVD, or else they have a preinstalled application which pops up when you first turn it on prompting you to burn one. That system restore disk, after verifying that the hardware is eligible, typically brings the OS back to an already-activated state so re-activation isn't necessary in that case. I guess you're screwed if you ever upgrade the hardware though.
But no Macintosh user is going to have to deal with the OEM Windows Visa activation limitation, since last I heard, Apple has no plans to start selling Macs with Windows pre-installed.
And it's very unlikely that a Mac user would ever need to worry about his hardware changing to the point that Windows would decide to ask for reactivation without reinstallation, judging by the kinds of upgrades I've been allowed to do using XP without re-activation and contrasting this against the sum total set of upgrades that are possible to perform on my Macintosh...
(I'd guess it'd be virtually impossible in the Parallels Desktop virtualization case, since the hosted Windows session would only ever see a fixed "generic" Intel Pentium-class CPU, an i815 chipset, and a generic SVGA/VESA video card.)
I agree that on a Mac, this problem shouldn't arise using Parallels.
But, if one upgrades the cpu, as we will now be able to do, in a limited way, it could arise using Boot Camp.
Intel has had some form of hardware-supported virtualization ever since the 80386. It was able to support several 8086-based virtual machines with mutually independent and protected memory spaces (both RAM and port-mapped I/O space).
That's how Windows 3.1 running on a 386 was able to cooperatively multitask between Windows- and DOS-based applications. It's not that they magically added multitasking services to DOS... It's just that the virtual machine (the CPU itself was not emulated, only the memory and peripherals connected to it) was bound to a protected-mode Windows process which did support multitasking...
That was not possible when running Windows 3.1 on a 286. Because in order to make it happen on a 286, they would have needed to create a functional 8086 emulator entirely in software, and the DOS applications would have been prohibitively slow.
Note the distinction between "virtual machine" and "emulator" as used in the above paragraphs.
Intel's new virtualization scheme is much different, and much more effictive than the old model.
Comments
As for license terms and the fact that all MSDN members get to use a sweeter deal than regular mortals...
They do pay for it though. The Operating System Subscription is $799/yr to start, $499/yr to renew.
Ok, now go run OS X in a virtual machine...oh wait, YOU CAN'T! Not at ALL. Its against the terms of the software agreement.
Where does Apple prohibit this? I don't see it here:
http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/macosx104.pdf
They do, however, only license their OS to run on Apple-branded computers. This is not simply a draconian anticompetitive thing. It is the core of the Mac philosophy. The reason they can make such an amazingly smooth, excellent, advanced OS is that they don't have to account for every possibe hardware configuration that some jerk in his basement can come up with. Instead, they can optimize their system to only run on a handful of existing Macs for which they know every little detail.
The iPod is the same way. You can't send music from iTunes to a Zune, and you can't use some junky jukebox software to load up your iPod. This allows Apple to make the experience of both iPod and iTunes much better than if they had to account for the kajillions of mp3 players out there. (And if they opened it up like that, I doubt the record labels would let them sell their songs.)
You can complain all you want about this... and 94% of people think it isn't worth the cost and go and buy Windows. The other 6% would rather have a computer they don't have to fight like crazy and don't seem to mind that they are forced to only buy one of a handful of sexy, high-quality, elegant, moderately-priced computers.
Doesn't the wording of the licencing for Vista mean that with Vista Home one may not run the same licence in virtual machine? So that to run a virtualisation of Vista Home requires two licenced products while if one had Vista Premium one could run a virtualised version of Vista using the product licence (i.e.: one would not be required to buy another licence? It would seem to be the intent behind the wording.
In effect, if one bought/had an unused Vista Home licence one could install that as a VM on an Apple Computer computer. One should hope so, anyhow.
"You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device," the company wrote in the licensing agreements for the higher-priced systems. So device=the hardware computer (the product key licenced to the physical mahine) may not be used again in a virtual environment -unless one have Premium Biz edition.
No. it's quite clear as to what they mean. Only the two higher priced versions will be allowed to run under a virtualized system.
This makes sense, really.
MS is interested in virtualized systems for multi cpu servers. No one runs Home OS's on those. MS is making it clear that they only want professional installations running virtualized.
Besides, anyone using a professional system doesn't need phone support. They can buy an OEM version of the software at much less cost by purchasing a SATA cable with it.
Fascinating... But I'm still not sold on the practicality to implement something like this. There must be some authority in charge of ensuring that the resources used by one OS (filesystem and memory) are truly distinct from the resources used by the other OS. The argument could probably be made that that authority is acting as an "other form of emulation"... (That wording is open to a pretty broad range of possible definitions)
Cpu hardware virtualization ensures that.
I personally know several folk whose software development goes on as a hobby, or otherwise without the direct support of Microsoft. They use virtualization just like the big boys. Currently, if they want to obey their license terms, they must own two complete copies of any Windows XP edition. Possibly with Vista, they'll be able to own just one copy (one of the Pro versions) and the virtualized copy of the OS for cleanroom testing would be included in the original purchase price. Sorta renders the "multiple licenses" portion of the special MSDN EULA obsolete, doesn't it...
That would be violating the terms of the license. Only one copy mat be installed at any time. This includes virtualized copies.
. . . on top of only letting me move Vista once and only selling it once?
If I interpret this correctly, it means that my copy of Vista, once resold and used to upgrade another computer, becomes worthless, unusable. That is the end of the line for that copy of Vista, because it cannot be activated ever again on another computer.
Microsoft has invented the ultimate planned obsolescence. Before Vista, things became obsolete when a newer and better replacement product was developed, and the market for the older version eventually dried up naturally, following the laws of economics. Now, Windows OS will self destruct, and eventually people will be forced to buy the newer product because all copies of the older system are garbage and do no work.
Now technically, when someone sells their computer and Vista is installed, does this also count as a sale of the OS? If so, then technically if the computer is sold a second time, the operating system would not be legal, though I don't know how MS could enforce that one if new owners don't report the sale, and try to register Vista in their name.
To me, these changes are much more devastating than not being allowed to run Vista in a virtual machine. Not only does the one sale restriction force more continued updating of the OS, it will eventually make old hardware unusable, at least legally unusable. When today's Vista computers are old, and cannot run the latest Windows OS, they cannot be sold to others multiple times and have a legal OS. Possibly the only legal solution is to downgrade the OS to a version before Vista, which did not have the built-in self destruct feature.
Way to go Microsoft.
If I interpret this correctly, it means that my copy of Vista, once resold and used to upgrade another computer, becomes worthless, unusable. That is the end of the line for that copy of Vista, because it cannot be activated ever again on another computer.
Yes, that is correct. Microsoft says this was the same with Windows XP, but the EULA did not spell that out.
Note that the EULA for Vista pre-installed on new PCs (90% of their OS sales) is different and allows ZERO transfers to other PCs.
Steve
Yes, that is correct. Microsoft says this was the same with Windows XP, but the EULA did not spell that out.
Note that the EULA for Vista pre-installed on new PCs (90% of their OS sales) is different and allows ZERO transfers to other PCs.
Steve
Correct for Vista. But pre-installed XP is also limited to the machine it came installed in. There is even a sticker on the machines to tell you that.
Cpu hardware virtualization ensures that.
I can only assume that you've misinterpreted the point I was trying to make in my discussion with auxio...
Auxio was advocating the idea that it might be possible to "have his cake and eat it too." Specifically, he was suggesting that some scheme could be devised that didn't use the word "virtualization" and thus bypassed the Vista EULA restritcions, and yet, allowed you to leave both OSes loaded in memory so you didn't need to live with the pains of dual booting.
My position from the start was that such a scheme would either be impossible under the strictest interpretation of the Windows Vista license scheme (since some form of virtualization was going to need to go on in the background even if it was hidden from the end user) or else impractical to the point that it would either be prohibitively difficult to write the code to manage it and you'd end up with a system that was basically no different than a run-of-the-mill dual boot scheme.
That would be violating the terms of the license. Only one copy mat be installed at any time. This includes virtualized copies.
I've finally taken the time to read the full text of the Windows Vista Home and Ultimate edition licenses. And now I have to say that it appears you're interpretation is the correct one. It's unfortunate.
But I guess that limitation will never affect me since I wouldn't even consider using the Home editions of Windows Vista for various other reasons. (Mainly because Visual Studio hasn't officially been supported on the "Home" editions of XP so I assume that'll continue to be the case in Vista. And occasionally I need to connect to a Novell network.)
I can only assume that you've misinterpreted the point I was trying to make in my discussion with auxio...
Auxio was advocating the idea that it might be possible to "have his cake and eat it too." Specifically, he was suggesting that some scheme could be devised that didn't use the word "virtualization" and thus bypassed the Vista EULA restritcions, and yet, allowed you to leave both OSes loaded in memory so you didn't need to live with the pains of dual booting.
I didn't misinterpret it. I was pointing out, as it didn't seem to be understood, that the virtualization using these Intel chips is hardware supported. This is completely unlike the virtual schemes in the past. It had been stated that virtualization was simply software when it is not.
I'm not looking back to the post to see who said what, but it was my response to whomever did think it.
My position from the start was that such a scheme would either be impossible under the strictest interpretation of the Windows Vista license scheme (since some form of virtualization was going to need to go on in the background even if it was hidden from the end user) or else impractical to the point that it would either be prohibitively difficult to write the code to manage it and you'd end up with a system that was basically no different than a run-of-the-mill dual boot scheme.
I've finally taken the time to read the full text of the Windows Vista Home and Ultimate edition licenses. And now I have to say that it appears you're interpretation is the correct one. It's unfortunate.
But I guess that limitation will never affect me since I wouldn't even consider using the Home editions of Windows Vista for various other reasons. (Mainly because Visual Studio hasn't officially been supported on the "Home" editions of XP so I assume that'll continue to be the case in Vista. And occasionally I need to connect to a Novell network.)
You might be interested in reading this.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895...MNL102306EP16A
And this.
http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=25933
Purely for selfish reasons, I wish Apple would just buy Intuit and fix Quicken on the Mac so I won't ever have to dirty my fingers and run Windows on emulation ever again for the rest of my life.
Give Intuit a break. They could be creating a brand-spanking new version of Quicken that is a UB and can import files created by the Windows version. For good measure, they will make Quicken for Mac and Quicken for Windows have feature parity.
You might be interested in reading this.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895...MNL102306EP16A
Yeah. I had gleaned most of that from MS's web site several months ago. My gut reaction back then was that Microsoft was trying too hard to over compartmentalize its users with Vista.
And this.
http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=25933
Ah, the one-reactivation condition in Vista. It pisses me off. But I'm not certain yet that it's really going to result in an experience that's very much different than the expericences I've personally had with re-activating Windows XP.
If XP it detects that the hardware has evolved to the point that its substantially different from the configuration that was present when Windows was first activated, it will require you to re-activate. ("Substantially different" is a subjective term for a the result of an internal computation based on the hard drive, CPU, MAC address, RAM, etc...)
I have experienced this myself. And I can attest that somebody can activate a single product ID from a retail packaged version of Windows XP exactly twice. If you go beyond that limit, then you must contact Microsoft telephone support to find out if they're feeing charitable enough to let you reactivate again, or if they're going to force you to purchase a new license.
As for computers that have XP pre-installed... Usually, they either come with a system restore CD/DVD, or else they have a preinstalled application which pops up when you first turn it on prompting you to burn one. That system restore disk, after verifying that the hardware is eligible, typically brings the OS back to an already-activated state so re-activation isn't necessary in that case. I guess you're screwed if you ever upgrade the hardware though.
But no Macintosh user is going to have to deal with the OEM Windows Visa activation limitation, since last I heard, Apple has no plans to start selling Macs with Windows pre-installed.
And it's very unlikely that a Mac user would ever need to worry about his hardware changing to the point that Windows would decide to ask for reactivation without reinstallation, judging by the kinds of upgrades I've been allowed to do using XP without re-activation and contrasting this against the sum total set of upgrades that are possible to perform on my Macintosh...
(I'd guess it'd be virtually impossible in the Parallels Desktop virtualization case, since the hosted Windows session would only ever see a fixed "generic" Intel Pentium-class CPU, an i815 chipset, and a generic SVGA/VESA video card.)
I didn't misinterpret it. I was pointing out, as it didn't seem to be understood, that the virtualization using these Intel chips is hardware supported. This is completely unlike the virtual schemes in the past.
Intel has had some form of hardware-supported virtualization ever since the 80386. It was able to support several 8086-based virtual machines with mutually independent and protected memory spaces (both RAM and port-mapped I/O space).
That's how Windows 3.1 running on a 386 was able to cooperatively multitask between Windows- and DOS-based applications. It's not that they magically added multitasking services to DOS... It's just that the virtual machine (the CPU itself was not emulated, only the memory and peripherals connected to it) was bound to a protected-mode Windows process which did support multitasking...
That was not possible when running Windows 3.1 on a 286. Because in order to make it happen on a 286, they would have needed to create a functional 8086 emulator entirely in software, and the DOS applications would have been prohibitively slow.
Note the distinction between "virtual machine" and "emulator" as used in the above paragraphs.
Ah, the one-reactivation condition in Vista. It pisses me off. But I'm not certain yet that it's really going to result in an experience that's very much different than the expericences I've personally had with re-activating Windows XP.
If XP it detects that the hardware has evolved to the point that its substantially different from the configuration that was present when Windows was first activated, it will require you to re-activate. ("Substantially different" is a subjective term for a the result of an internal computation based on the hard drive, CPU, MAC address, RAM, etc...)
I have experienced this myself. And I can attest that somebody can activate a single product ID from a retail packaged version of Windows XP exactly twice. If you go beyond that limit, then you must contact Microsoft telephone support to find out if they're feeing charitable enough to let you reactivate again, or if they're going to force you to purchase a new license.
As for computers that have XP pre-installed... Usually, they either come with a system restore CD/DVD, or else they have a preinstalled application which pops up when you first turn it on prompting you to burn one. That system restore disk, after verifying that the hardware is eligible, typically brings the OS back to an already-activated state so re-activation isn't necessary in that case. I guess you're screwed if you ever upgrade the hardware though.
But no Macintosh user is going to have to deal with the OEM Windows Visa activation limitation, since last I heard, Apple has no plans to start selling Macs with Windows pre-installed.
And it's very unlikely that a Mac user would ever need to worry about his hardware changing to the point that Windows would decide to ask for reactivation without reinstallation, judging by the kinds of upgrades I've been allowed to do using XP without re-activation and contrasting this against the sum total set of upgrades that are possible to perform on my Macintosh...
(I'd guess it'd be virtually impossible in the Parallels Desktop virtualization case, since the hosted Windows session would only ever see a fixed "generic" Intel Pentium-class CPU, an i815 chipset, and a generic SVGA/VESA video card.)
I agree that on a Mac, this problem shouldn't arise using Parallels.
But, if one upgrades the cpu, as we will now be able to do, in a limited way, it could arise using Boot Camp.
Intel has had some form of hardware-supported virtualization ever since the 80386. It was able to support several 8086-based virtual machines with mutually independent and protected memory spaces (both RAM and port-mapped I/O space).
That's how Windows 3.1 running on a 386 was able to cooperatively multitask between Windows- and DOS-based applications. It's not that they magically added multitasking services to DOS... It's just that the virtual machine (the CPU itself was not emulated, only the memory and peripherals connected to it) was bound to a protected-mode Windows process which did support multitasking...
That was not possible when running Windows 3.1 on a 286. Because in order to make it happen on a 286, they would have needed to create a functional 8086 emulator entirely in software, and the DOS applications would have been prohibitively slow.
Note the distinction between "virtual machine" and "emulator" as used in the above paragraphs.
Intel's new virtualization scheme is much different, and much more effictive than the old model.