Well Screw you Microchip...

[Karel]

Regarding the use of VMs, which I think is absolutely essential for medium to long term project maintenance, please be aware that some compilers such is Microchip's XC series are not supported under a VM unless you purchase a VM licence (a further $1k or so) on top of the server-distributed licence.

Apart from real support from Microchip techs, there's no need for a licence for Microchip compilers because they are using GCC which is free.
So, if it's only for the sake of unlocking the optimizations of the compiler, you can perfectly legally patch them yourself without the need of a licence.
Patching takes only 5 minutes.

not xc8 i believe and that's the one that really need optimizations

You are right. I forgot that because I stopped using 8-bit mcu's long time ago.

[Howardlong]

Regarding the use of VMs, which I think is absolutely essential for medium to long term project maintenance, please be aware that some compilers such is Microchip's XC series are not supported under a VM unless you purchase a VM licence (a further $1k or so) on top of the server-distributed licence.

Apart from real support from Microchip techs, there's no need for a licence for Microchip compilers because they are using GCC which is free.
So, if it's only for the sake of unlocking the optimizations of the compiler, you can perfectly legally patch them yourself without the need of a licence.
Patching takes only 5 minutes.

It took a lot longer than 5 minutes to find all the right information the last time I tried a couple of years ago. In addition, Microchip histroically have fiddled with the way they do things meaning that any process that might've worked in the past sometimes doesn't work in newer releases. In the end I considered it not worth the effort to fanny about and renew my compiler licences when I need to. I've renewed them all this year, but this was the first time for over two years I've needed to.

I'm not excusing the compiler pricing and licensing model they use, just that sometimes life is too short. I simply found that the cost of renewing the compiler license was less than the cost of time lost to build my own, so it was a simple commercial decision.

[Karel]

It took a lot longer than 5 minutes to find all the right information the last time I tried a couple of years ago.

Try this: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/pic32-evolution/msg1007099/#msg1007099

[aandrew]

A VM per project is a bit excessive for me. You'll still need to be able to attach the debugger or dongles. Which don't work.

I have only ever found ONE debugger that didn't work in a VM, and it was pretty unstable outside of the VM as well. VMWare and VirtualBox both have excellent USB1.x/2.x passthrough support, and I've had some limited success with USB 3.0 passthrough with VMWare Fusion.

You're correct that for "real" VM (where your image is on a server somewhere) and you're using RDP to connect, USB-over-LAN is a fair bit trickier, but running a local VBox or VMWare VM it pretty much just works every time.