Important Note: The Visual Studio 2010 ALM Virtual Machine is Expiring Soon

The Visual Studio 2010 ALM Virtual Machine will stop working on September 10, 2012 and will not be updated. If you are still using that virtual machine, please upgrade to the Visual Studio Visual Studio 2012 RTM ALM virtual machine. The 2012 version is based on final RTM software and includes all of the sample data and hands-on-labs / demo scripts which were available in the 2010 ALM virtual machine.

The good news is that 2012 virtual machine uses a different build process which effectively gives it an infinite shelf life, since you can retain the original RAR files and extract a fresh copy whenever you need to. That fresh copy can be activated and will work for 180 days.

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 24, 2012
  Thank you :)

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2012
  Why can't these be "forever" VMs for those with MSDN Ulitmate Licenses?

• Anonymous
  August 30, 2012
  Stephen, This is possible BUT... You will need to manually activate all of the software in that image (including the operating system) with your product keys and ensure that you have appropriate licenses for everything in that image. If you have an active MSDN Subscription this will do the trick. You will need to enter product keys for VS, TFS, SQL, Windows, and (optionally) Office.

• Anonymous
  August 31, 2012
  @Brian Thanks for responding!  That is very very good news. I assumed that the VM expired because of a limitation that you put on it (at the VM level). If it is just the licenses in it, then I will be all set!   Thank you for making these VM!  Because if some enterprise issues with .NET 4.5, my company will not let me install Visual Studio 2012. With this VM I can still play around with VS/TFS 2012 while not breaking the rules!

• Anonymous
  September 04, 2012
  Hi Brian When will this be available in other flavours rather than Hyper-V? Regards

• Anonymous
  September 05, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 10, 2012
  Brian, I entered my MSDN keys and everything was activated last week, but my SQL now reports it has expired. My State Agency just installed 2010 two weeks ago and we really needed a classroom to keep from killing the real TFS Server. We will not migrate to 2012 until first of next year. Did I miss something? Am I able to fix this after the fact? I have access to many licensed copies of SQL - If I install one of these will that repair the deactivation?

• Anonymous
  September 10, 2012
  Hi Stephen, it sounds like you didn't apply a key for SQL? It has been a while since I tried this but if memory serves I remember the SQL trial-> full process was the most difficult since you have to perform an uninstall/reinstall and re-attach all of the databases. As another approach you might try just upgrading the installed instance of SQL to, say, SQL 2008 R2 or SQL 2012 (I can't remember what is currently present in the VM). Use your full MSDN software for this. That might be an easier approach to upgrade and preserve your DB's, but of course keep a backup before you attempt this.