No Really: Microsoft giving away Windows Image with redistribution allowed

http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2010/03/22/Have-some-free-Windows.aspx

by VonGuard • 16 years ago

87 30 16 years ago

No tricks. Microsoft is giving away Windows Server 2008. And you can even redistribute the image.

dpritchett• 16 years ago

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 appears to be a no-gui virtualization host (hypervisor). There's a feature chart here that alludes to an unclear licensing issue with "guest virtualization rights". [1]

The downloadable image is 1.5 GB.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx

VonGuard• 16 years ago

Hey, that's enough to boot and run apps. Also, if you diddle the image with one of MS's tools, you can jam a gui into it, in theory.

windsurfer• 16 years ago

If that's the case, one could produce a tool that includes the image and "patches" it after installation, creating a free GUIfied windows.

pbhjpbhj2• 16 years ago

Could you install KDE4 on top - that might actually be a very good way to get a clean KDE4 over MS Windows if it works; http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/KDE_on_Windows.

patrickgzill• 16 years ago

Note: you must use Intel VT or AMD-V enabled CPUs for this. Opterons that have only 3 digits in their model number won't work (such as 275, 880, etc), those with 4 digits (2220, 8218, etc) will.

(edit: looks like non-Windows guest OSes can only be allocated 1 virtual CPU; for me that is a deal-killer.)

dotBen• 16 years ago

If you want to run non-windows guest OS's then why us Windows as the host/hypervisor?

sokoloff• 16 years ago

If you were a 99% Windows shop but wanted a linux-based DNS, mediawiki, subversion or similar server would be one case. (Host mostly Windows guests, but a small number of non-Windows.)

barnaby• 16 years ago

Wow, I must be behind the times. Microsoft have a headless server? Windows as a hypervisor?

Thank you for posting this, as this is news to me.

mjhnghfh2• 16 years ago

So I can run windows as a headless baselayer to virtualize paid for copies of windows. Rather than using Linux or the built in Xen hypervisor.

Slashed• 16 years ago

First time I stumbled upon this version of Windows about half a year ago. I actually installed it on one of my laptops. When it's BOOTed, the "GUI" is pretty much like in Safe-Mode, only in full display resolution, i.e. a blue background and a console window. I don't remember exactly, but it was missing a lot of libraries.. so I couldn't actually install much software. Though, I'm sure it's possible to install all the missing libraries via Microsoft's website.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

It's likely programs and libraries will refuse to work and complain they were not designed to run under your operating system.

thwarted• 16 years ago

Reading this description reminded me of Novel Netware's plain text dialog interface.

nollidge• 16 years ago

Hey cool, an irritating JS overlay as soon as I open it.

YogSothoth• 16 years ago

I immediately close any site that does this - don't care what they are offering/selling - if they behave this way, I guarantee their wares aren't worth bothering with.

It's almost like looking at code, I generally only have to look at the formatting. You don't see a lot of lame code that's impeccably formatted (nor a lot of useful websites that do that in-your-face type of advertising).

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

Sdtimes is worth clicking on a close button.

javert2• 16 years ago

I run a Linux desktop but would like to be able to run Windows apps in a Windows guest. I'm going to try to run this as a Windows guest and see if it works (using VirtualBox).

javert2• 16 years ago

I got downvoted for this? Seriously?

mhansen• 16 years ago

This isn't a guest environment of windows - this is a hypervisor - it runs on the bare metal (using virtualization features on new CPUs), hosting other operating systems.

This can't run windows apps as a windows guest.

rbanffy5• 16 years ago

Why would anyone want to do this?

bonsaitree• 16 years ago

I have no idea. Microsoft lost this former "solutions provider" (used to get the monthly crate-o-CDs) in the mid-90s with the anti-developer trifecta of:

- Executable registry entries

- Baking-In IE into the O.S. w/o any native ability (pre hypervisors) to concurrently run multiple versions for testing purposes

- Re-Authorization/Re-Licensing for trivial hardware changes (the whole WGA bullshit)

iigs• 16 years ago

I've never heard of executable registry entries, and google is failing me when I try to find them. Can you link me to something about them?

kogir• 16 years ago

If you have no interest in virtualizing Windows then this won't be of much use to you. First class support for Linux is limited to Suse and RedHat Enterprise.

However, if you're a Microsoft shop and want to virtualize Windows (be it for production, testing, or development), it's a huge boon. Hyper-V even supports some awesome features like live migration (moving a VM from one host to another) with mere seconds of downtime. Similar features in VMWare cost thousands of dollars.

At Loopt we're going to be using this extensively for development.

arethuza• 16 years ago

Hyper-V is a bit of a pain as it doesn't let you over-commit on memory.

VMWare ESXi looks like a much better bet - I'm currently thinking about moving 40+ VMs in a development environment from Hyper-V to ESX so we can run more of them at the same time.

listic• 16 years ago

It can be counted as a benefit.

You will appreciate the fact that your hosting provider cannot oversell the servers. Xen also works like this.

fname• 16 years ago

Actually, with Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 it will add dynamic memory which is the same as VMware's memory overcommit as well as RemoteFX for 3D graphics display for virtualized desktops.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/198736.asp

No Really: Microsoft giving away Windows Image with redistribution allowed

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