Xen devel - Mar 2006 - XEN and windows licensing

To run windows under XEN running on windows, I''d have to pay an extra
windows license... is there any way to get applications to run under Xen and
pass the windows system calls through to windows so Xen isnt running an OS but
rather a proxy OS?
   
   

		
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On 3/1/06, Stan Morey <stan.morey@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> To run windows under XEN running on windows, I''d have to pay an
extra
> windows license... is there any way to get applications to run under Xen
and
> pass the windows system calls through to windows so Xen isnt running an OS
> but rather a proxy OS?
I think the short answer to your question is no. However, did you
consider ReactOS or Wine? I suppose ReactOS could be ported to run on
top of Xen, I think this was discussed at some point.

Jacob

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________________________________

	From: xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com
[mailto:xen-devel-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Stan Morey
	Sent: 01 March 2006 00:31
	To: xen-devel@lists.xensource.com
	Subject: [Xen-devel] XEN and windows licensing
	
	
	To run windows under XEN running on windows, I''d have to pay an
extra windows license... is there any way to get applications to run
under Xen and pass the windows system calls through to windows so Xen
isnt running an OS but rather a proxy OS? 

Microsoft allows you to run multiple copies of Windows under
virtualization with a single license - although only for certain
versions of the OS of course.. 
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/oct05/10-10virtualizati
onlicensing.mspx
<http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/oct05/10-10virtualizat
ionlicensing.mspx> 

However, what you describe isn''t possible - well, at least
it''s not
TRIVIALLY possible. You have to have a version of Windows installed on
the machine when you want to run Windows application, unless you use
some sort of Windows emulator, such as Wine under Linux. 

Intercepting the system calls themselves isn''t very difficult, but
doing
the work that the system call means has to be done isn''t very easy -
we''d have to write our own, compatible, version of Windows for Xen. 

And by the way, if you''re running Windows already (legally), you have a
license. If you then convert that machine to run with Xen, you''d still
own your legal license, so you could use that license to install Windows
on top of Xen. Since Xen itself doesn''t require a copy of Windows other
than the one you''re actually using to run your apps, you don''t
need
another license - Xen uses a version of Linux to run the hardware
emulation that you need to do to make Windows believe there''s some real
hardware there. Of course, running multiple copies of Windows would be
under whatever rules apply to that version of Windows and virtualized
systems.

--

Mats



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