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Virtual Server 2005 Support Messaging

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Question:

I am curious to know what this message is about:

"You should use Microsoft Windows XP Professional as a host operating system only in a non-production environment."

What does the non-production environment mean and is it recommended to set up a Virtual Server for means of building a website, exchange server, etc... on XP Pro?

Look forward to your response.

Answer:

I am not a legal expert nor authoritative on this issue. What follows is merely my interpretation of various statements and logical intents. You should query Ben or your representative for concrete details.

The issue is really all about product support.

If you want product support from Microsoft, then you can only use the software in the supported manner. If you have problems with Virtual Server or with the supported software inside the Guest OS, you can contact Microsoft PSS for assistance.

If you do not want/need product support from Microsoft, then you can configure and run whatever you want. It is just that if something breaks or does not work, you are on your own.

The reason we stick to such language on support is simple - there are an INFINITE number of ways to configure/use software, we only intend for a set combination to function and can never cover the rest, so we cannot guarantee performance of something we did not intend nor test. It is similar to a product warranty - frequently, the manufacturer warrants against defects under "normal" usage but does not include normal wear and tear, user misuse, acts of Nature, etc. In other words, the manufacturer wants to cover THEIR defect and not ANY possible defect.

What it means is that Windows XP, while a supported Host OS for Virtual Server, is supported only if you run it in a non-production (i.e. personal / experimental / development use) environment. In other words, while Microsoft supports running Server products like Exchange Server (2003SP1), Windows Server, etc inside of a supported Guest OS, if you Host it on Windows XP for your company or other people, then it is not supported; if you Host the same thing on Windows Server 2003, then it is supported.

The reason is quite simple - no one uses Windows XP as a supported Server in a production environment, and you cannot do it now, even though Windows XP can Host supported Servers as Guest OS using Virtual Server. We never intended nor tested Windows XP as a production Server when it was released, and we certainly do not test it now to Host Servers as Guest OS, either. However, we will not stop you from doing it because it is technically possible and has its own benefits; we can only say we do not support it in production.

So, the answer to your question is that yes, you can run servers like Exchange, IIS, SQL, etc as a Guest OS Hosted on Windows XP. However, it is simply not recommended nor supported by Microsoft if you plan on using that combination like a real Server (i.e. have >1 user, physical or virtual, use it).

//David

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2006
    Also on a side note and please correct me if I am wrong. I know nt 4.0 workstation and windows 2000 workstation only support 10 other client connections. Hence making them a server really not very viable. I am not sure if this restriction was carried over to windows xp but I do not know why it wouldn't be.  However XP is a pretty decent platform to test building a website. I wouldn't recomend running production on it anyway.

    Also some server products can not be installed on XP like anything enterprise server usually the setup script just will not let it install.
  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2006
    Jeff - Yes, the same workstation limitation carries over to Windows XP.

    Virtual Server allows server products to be installed inside a Server OS running as a Virtual Machine on top of Windows XP.

    Thus, Virtual Server makes Windows XP a pretty decent platform to test building out an entire network, install server software, etc. This is what "non-production" means and is supported.

    And once you've built everything and made sure it works, time to get the real server machine(s) to run the design, either Virtually or Physically.

    The Messaging is simple - you should not try to run the Virtual Machine/Windows XP combination as a production Server since it is not viable nor supported.

    //David
  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2006
    sir,
    i am binu mathew from kerala,india i like to know more about virtual server can u plz say some helpful sites about the virtual server and the method for making the application
    by
    Binu Mathew12@gmail.com
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    November 13, 2007
    The comment has been removed
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