Are the free Win 7/8/10 VM's Microsoft provides for testing purposes restricted or any different than their counterparts? [closed]

Solution 1:

To learn more about those VM too on my side, I asked your question on a private channel I have with MS and from a well known IE MVP I got this answer;

There are no limits and they are not stripped down.

nb. Limit for using the VM for testing anything, not for the actual activation limit.

Solution 2:

Functionally there are no restrictions on the system / OS. They do, however, maintain the usual evaluation licensing restrictions -- meaning they are for short-term, test use only. If you're going to do anything long-term or production based, you'll need to get the appropriate licensing.

Solution 3:

The VMs are not restricted. You can install whatever software you like provided it's compatible with the operating system.

I have used these frequently to test out Group Policy in labs, testing deployment of software in SCCM, and for testing programs I've written on multiple platforms.