I came across a very interesting article by Brian Bergstein today called "Microsoft Denies Vista to Some Mac Users". I naturally wondered what he is talking about. Windows runs on Macs, there is a virtualization product from Parallels, so what's this about? Well, it's about some cheep trick Microsoft uses to discourage the virtualization of Vista on Mac hardware (or to get more money out of it).

The Vista EULA clearly states that one may not use Windows Vista Home Basic or Home Premium as a guest operating system or as a host. To virtualize Vista you need to purchase Windows Vista Business, Enterprise or Ultimate, the cheapest being 300 US dollars. Not many would pay that kind of money for the "pleasure" of running Windows Vista alongside their Mac OS X.

You would think Microsoft encourages anyone to buy their new Vista, even the small percentage of computer users that have Macs. Well, they don't. It's bad enough Vista is expensive as it is, you must also buy the priciest one to legally run it on your Mac?

And wait, there's more! The EULA states "you may not play or access content or use applications protected by any Microsoft digital, information or enterprise rights management technology or other Microsoft rights management services or use BitLocker", even if you purchase one of the Vista versions they "recommend" for virtualization. I said "recommend" because apparently the stripped-down version of Vista would work as a virtualized operating system, but Microsoft says they don't allow this because of security issues.

Aside from these aspects, if you do decide to have Vista on your Mac, you can freely do so by using Boot Camp or use the virtualization product from Parallels ($80) that enables Windows to run in a window on the Mac desktop.