Microsoft Licensing question when we use VMware template feature

[ajaymedidi]

I have a basic question in my mind from past few months. Please answer to my question.

Question : using VMware template feature we can able to create N-number of virtual machines.

For example, I have created 20 windows 2003 Ent virtual machines from a win2003Enterprise template. After creating vms we can customize the guest OS with sysprep tool. Even we don't customize the license key we can still use that virtual machine (using the same license key which win2k3 template was using). Is that illegal if I use the same licence key? Is it mandatory to change the license key after I created VMs from a template?

or Is there any separate licensing agreement between VMware and Microsoft? Please explain...

Thanks in advance,

Ajay

[warriorfullight]

i think this type of question can be answered from Microsoft's end if they could support VMware further on this. since they are the primary OS that most of us used for VMware.

[maishsk]

This is not an official answer from Microsoft - but I would think that it would depend on the License Key you are using.

If it is a single License Key that was purchased - then I doubt it.

If it was a Volume License Key (VLK) then you should be ok.

Regardless, in Windows 7/2008 this is irrelevant, each OS has to be activated - either on the the Internet - or against a KMS server.

Maish

VMware Communities Moderator

My Blog - @maishsk

Co-Author of VMware vSphere Design