In November 2022 Microsoft made Virtual Machines (VMs) available for free for Windows 11 2022 Update (22H2), Visual Studio 2022, WSL and more. The following month, the company released an update for the VMs and now, in January, another patch was released. In this latest version, you can use Windows 11 and all its features, as well as several developer tools.

Requirements for using virtual machines with Windows 11

VMs get a new Windows 11 update. Source: Oficina da Net

To use Microsoft virtual machines with Windows 11, the user must have 20 GB available and must have installed machine virtualization software (VMWare, second generation Hyper-V, VirtualBox and Parallels). These VMs have the following tools:

  • Windows 11 Enterprise SKU (trial)
  • Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition with UWP
  • .NET Desktop
  • azure
  • Windows App SDK for C# Enabled Workloads
  • Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 activated with Ubuntu installed
  • Windows terminal installed
  • Developer mode enabled

Availability

When using Windows 11 Microsoft VMs, keep in mind that they are not completely free. However, you can use them at no cost until April 12, 2023. After this information, you will be asked to activate Windows, just as it happens in local installations of the operating system. If you want to install them, download the links on the official website here.