Microsoft free Win11 virtual machine update: no need to activate until March 5 next year, including Windows 11 development environment 2212

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizens Wu Yanzu in South China for the delivery of clues! CTOnews.com, December 9, Microsoft released another update after the release of a new free Windows 11 virtual machine last month. Windows 11 development environment 2212 is now available for download in four kinds of virtualization software. Users can get free Windows 11 virtual machines for VMWare, second-generation Hyper-V, VirtualBox, and Parallels.

Microsoft's official new Windows 11 virtual machine is about 20GB (click here to download), including the following tools:

Windows 11 Enterprise SKU (Evaluation)

Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition, which integrates UWP, .NET Desktop, Azure, and Windows App SDK for C# workload

Windows Subsystem for Linux 2, integrate with Ubuntu enabled

Windows Terminal is installed

Enable developer mode

Microsoft says the virtual machines are for those who want to use the latest version of Windows, developer tools, SDK and sample programs to quickly start building Windows applications. At the same time, it's a quick, easy, and free way to check what Windows 11 and its developer toolkit have to offer.

Microsoft will allow free use of its latest Windows 11 virtual machine until March 5, 2023 without activation (the previous version is valid until January 10, 2023). After that, Windows 11 will require the user to enter a real license key to continue using the virtual machine.

CTOnews.com learned that users can still use the Windows 7 key to activate Windows 11, as long as they make sure the versions match.