After releasing a new free Windows 11 virtual machine last month, Microsoft has rolled out another update. 2212, the Windows 11 development environment, is now available for download in four virtualization software titles. 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 approximately 20GB in size (click here to download and view) and includes the following tools.
- Windows 11 Enterprise SKU (evaluation)
- Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition with UWP, .NET Desktop, Azure and Windows App SDK for C# workloads
- Windows Subsystem for Linux 2, integrated with Ubuntu enabled
- Windows Terminal installed
- Enabled Developer Mode
Microsoft says these virtual machines are made for those who want to quickly start building Windows apps using the latest version of Windows, developer tools, SDKs and ready example programs. It’s also a quick, easy, and free way to check out what Windows 11 and its developer toolkit have to offer.
Microsoft will allow free access to its latest Windows 11 virtual machines without activation until March 5, 2023 (previous versions are valid until January 10, 2023). After that date, Windows 11 will require users to enter a real license key in order to continue using the virtual machine.
