Vista Home Basic and Home Premium users can finally run their operating systems legitimately in Parallels and in VMWare, as well as any other virtualized environment. Microsoft claims the “time is right” to do it.

The time was right when Vista came out. The time was right when people had already paid for Vista, intending to virtualize it, only to have Microsoft pull the rug out under their feet. The time was right when Microsoft had made their mind up intially.

But, truth be told, Microsoft was on shaky legal ground to ban Vista Home virtualization to begin with. Critics poured through Microsoft’s EULA and couldn’t find clear language preventing the ban… only Microsoft’s ex-post-facto interpretation of the language. I’ve personally told folks since day one to ignore it and use Vista Home as they wish (they did, after all, pay for it already).

But, the bottom line is, stopping virtualization never would have worked, and it didn’t work. So, Microsoft has given up. Welcome back to reality, Microsoft.