Robin Laing wrote:
Well, I think your reply does not have much relation to virtual techonology even m$ is very evil.Edward Yang wrote:
And we can all trust Microsoft to ensure that this is how it works. Microsoft lost a very long court case after making Windows not work with Dr Dos. I wouldn't be surprised to find Microsoft doing something similar. Who really knows all the code in Windows.
It does if you thing that MS could change one bit of code and distribute it in an update that would cause some weird problems for Linux in a VM environment.
What did they change in Windows to prevent it from installing on Dr. Dos?
How about all the fuss saying that they could not remove media player from Windows as it was integrated into the OS. Now they are about to release a version of Windows without Media Player in Europe. Or cut down versions of Windows for third world countries?
As Linux is becoming a bigger thorn in Microsofts side, they will try what they can to stop the spread or usage. They are putting pressure on manufacturers to sell all computers with an OS installed and even charging for each computer sold even if it doesn't include Windows. All under the guise of stopping piracy.
VM's are a great idea but they are not clean installs and the underlying OS can still cause problems. If the underlying OS is closed and controlled by a threatened company, they could do something to cause problems and blame it on a bug due to a security update. And we all know that many bugs in Windows take along time to get fixed.
How many years did the battle go on with Dr. Dos. Could the industry wait that long for Linux to work properly in a VM again?
In my opinion, with the cost of computers taking a dive, it is cheaper to have a second computer for these tests and use a KVM. That is what we do around my work. Heck, some people have three or four computers under/on their desks.
-- Robin Laing
