Going into 2009, I know there are a lot of people who are ready to take the Windows 7 leap from their Windows XP environment.  Although Vista was built to replace Windows XP, it didn't happen... for a number of reasons, people stuck with XP and chose not to upgrade.  But it sounds like that will be the case with the launch of Windows 7. 

ZDNet's Ed Bott recently blogged about his findings after he had a chance to work with a "leaked copy" of the operating system that isn't supposed to Beta until sometime this month. 

One of the interesting things that Ed found was the operating system's virtualization licensing agreement.  Whether this stays true through the release of the OS or not, here is what Ed found in his leaked copy:

• It’s OK to install in a virtual machine. The license agreement for the original release of Windows Vista includes some truly opaque wording about installing in a virtualized environment. This wording was significantly cleaned up for the Vista SP1 license agreement, and this same language appears in the Windows 7 EULA. The “Use with Virtualization Technologies” section is straightforward:

Instead of using the software directly on the licensed device, you may install and use the software within only one virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device.

So after the back and forth virtualization licensing mess that took place around Microsoft Vista, perhaps this issue will be settled before the new OS actually hits the store shelves.