Hyper-V Server 2019 (Free) as a Virtual Machine and Application Server

Dave Patrick Thank you

I read the Microsoft License Terms for Windows Server 2019 and found this:

2. Definitions

• g.      Operating System Environment. An “operating system environment” is:
  • I. (a) Physical operating system environment is configured to run directly on a physical hardware system. The physical operating system instance used to run hardware virtualization software (e.g., Microsoft Hyper-V Server or similar technologies) or to provide hardware virtualization services (e.g., Microsoft virtualization technologies) is considered part of the physical operating system environment.

3. How to License Server Software

• d. Running Instances of the Server Software
  Windows Server Standard
  • ii. If you run all permitted instances at the same time, the instance of the server software running in the physical operating system environment may be used only to:
    • run hardware virtualization software,
    • provide hardware virtualization services,
    • run software to manage and service operating system environments on the licensed server.
      
      
• l. Limited rights versions. If the software version you acquired is marked or otherwise intended for a specific or limited use, then you may only use it as specified. You may not use such versions of the software for commercial, non-profit, or revenue-generating activities.

The fact that Windows Server 2019 Core Hyper-V is installed on everything and is activated immediately for free does not mean that you can use it for whatever you want. The license above rather indicates the purpose of this named system.

Using Windows Server 2019 Core Hyper-V as a file server or SQL server, which has nothing to do with virtualization, will be a rather blatant violation of the free license.

The case is different when we use the above roles and applications to manage a virtualized environment.

What do you think about it ?