Microsoft will also introduce four new Solution Accelerators that will be available at the Windows Server 2008 launch on Feb. 27. This is essentially free guidance resources and tools to help customers plan and deploy virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and Microsoft Application Virtualization, Orecklin said.

This latest reversal follows the company’s flip-flop in June 2007, when it was all set to announce that the lower-cost Vista Home Basic ($199) and Vista Home Premium ($249) versions could be used in virtual machine environments, and that it had lifted its prohibition on the use of information rights management, digital rights management and its BitLocker data encryption service in a virtual machine.

In a prebriefing at the time, a spokesperson for the Vista team told eWEEK that the decision to allow the virtualization of all Vista SKUs was a reaction to greater awareness of the potential security issues around virtualization and customer pressure on the company to offer greater choice.

But then something happened that resulted in a 180-degree turnaround in Microsoft’s position, with a company spokesperson telling eWEEK shortly thereafter that "Microsoft has reassessed the Windows virtualization policy and decided that we will maintain the original policy announced last fall."

That meant that only the high-end Business ($299) and Ultimate ($399) versions of Vista would continue to be enabled for virtualization.