Cores, more cores and licensing

The otherday I wrote a bit on the licensing changes around Windows 2003 R2 EE, DE and virtualization.  Well licensing is something that is always causing confusion and multi-core processors just add to that confusion.  Well our friends in Redmond have a page up to help explain the licensing requirements for multi-core systems.  In a nutshell

  • licenses are based on sockets, or physical processors
  • one license per socket, not per core
  • XP Home can support a single multi-core processor
  • XP Pro can support dual multi-core processors

You can find out more at the Multicore Processor Licensing page.  And for more on licensing in general you can find out more at the Licensing Home Page.