As Wired's software blog, Monkey Bites, pointed out a few days back, Vista's EULA in the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista forbids its use in a virtualized environment. In other words, it's against the terms of the EULA to run Vista Home under Parallels desktop, which has, as can be seen at ourCult of Mac blog, become an unexpectedly interesting prospect for Mac owners.
That said, some other blogs are reporting that its "illegal" to run Vista in this way unless you have the Enterprise or Ultimate Edition of Vista, which are rather more expensive (Home editions top out at $240, Enterprise starts at $300.) Now, I'm not a lawyer, but this surely isn't really the case, as contravening a EULA isn't breaking the law. While raving anti-EULA anger isn't productive, it's worth noting that just because a stipulation exists in the text, it doesn't mean it has any legal weight: this is why EULAs have clauses that say something to the effect of, "If one part of all this is nonsense, that doesn't mean all of it is."
Will Microsoft try and whip up anti-virtualization controls for Home editions of Vista? Who knows? Will anyone get in any trouble for running it under Parallels? Eightball says No.
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