I guess that all depends, it's something for nothing so I can't really see a down side to it. If your already mineing it's a little extra hash, if not it's good for learning how to and gives a little bit without any cost. The guide is quite long just to make sure I covered everything but I think if you have used Linux before you could probably complete it in 20mins easy.

Great =D, no need to disable anything when you run out it automatically stops and shuts down. Then if you wanted to pay for it you would have to restart it manually. I checked this for definite before I posted the guide!

I'm interested to see what the results of this would work out profitability wise, I didn't know about the B1S either thanks.

You can chose whatever hardware is available, the bigger you go the quicker the trial ends. Would be nice to get a bit more out of it but its a free at then end of the day. If you wanted to continue to mine after the trial it might work out better renting a miner VM from one of the many places online.

I can see no issue with using windows for setup however, I would expect your hash rate to be a bit lower because windows tends to be more resource hungry than Ubuntu.

Yeah, I will look at making a video guide. I've got screenshots of the steps aswell that I want to add, how far have you got and what are you stuck on?

Good to know, I had no issue and know others who have done this. I couldn't find anything in the T&C's against it but that's not to to say they might change them. I heard that AWS clamped down on it a while back, not technically breaking their T&C's but they claimed that mining software is a virus so that gave them the right to close the VM's and accounts.

Thanks for the advice, I've updated the guide!

Yeah it's probably accurate, I would expect a little bit more but not huge amounts. Free is free at the end of the day, if your already mining it adds a little bit extra hash power, if not it's something for nothing. You could probably setup some other trials like from other sites and make it worth while following the same guide.

I think it gave between 80 and 100 H/s if I remember rightly, I can't see now because my trial has ended (wanted to check it didn't take any money out before posting). The 8CPU might work out better as you say, you will burn through the trail quicker but that's not a problem. Let me know what you find out and I will update the guide 

Setting up a Windows Azure trail for free Monero mining:
 
In this guide i will show you how to quickly and easily setup a Windows Azure VM (virtual machine) free trial to mine Monero (XMR). If you wanted to continue after the trail finishes you can but there is no obligation to do so, though it wouldnt be cost effective to do so. Its important to point out that although you will need a bank card to setup the trail it is not used for billing, purely for ID once the trail ends everything will be shutdown for you so wont incur any charges unless you then reactivate the account. Its not against the terms and conditions to use Azure in this way as of writing this but be sure to check the terms and conditions for yourself.
 
Before we begin you will need:
-A Microsoft account (e.g. Hotmail, live or outlook) if you haven't got one you can get one free here: http://live.com
-A bank card (Only used for identification, no charges will be made to the card)
-SSH software, for this guide i will assume most users will be using windows so I will suggest putty https://www.putty.org/ (use the MSI installer)
 
Lets begin:
 
Navigate to the Windows Azure website:  
www.azure.com/
You will notice banners for "Free Trial" click the link.     
Screenshot:https://imgur.com/5oLz2d4

-Login using your Microsoft account details
-Fill in your card details
Screenshot:https://imgur.com/aEQ9Zt7
 
Once complete you will find yourself at the Azure Dashboard from here we can make our Ubuntu VM, I'm using Ubuntu for this guide for ease/speed and minimal requirements however you could use another OS but they wont be covered by this guide.
 
Create a new VM:
 
On the dashboard click the +New in the top Left of the page
 
Then select: "Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS VM" (be sure to click on the words not the tutorial below)   
Screenshot:https://imgur.com/s6bSdWn
 
Then fill in the form:
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/UXN6oqX
-Name: can be anything, i went with AkumaMiner
-VM disk type: SSD
-Username: I went with akuma but you can give it any name (lowercase no symbols)
-Passwords: If you can use a key, if you don't know how use a strong password.
-Subscription: Free Trial  
-Resource Group: Any name you want, I used Akuma
-Location: Can be anywhere you like, the AkumaXMR pool is global so has a good connection internationally
Then click OK
 
Next we need to choose the size of our VM, as we will be mining via CPU we want as many CPU's as we can get for our free £150 or $200 in a month personally I used the D4S_V3 Standard (4 vCPU's), however you will be better off with F-series VM's, especially the V2 series VM's. (Thanks Generalheed).     
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/0xSOQQN
 
The next page, settings can all be left default unless you want to change anything. Then on the final page agree to the terms and click create.
 
You should then be moved to the Overview page, if your not a new icon for your new VM should be on the dashboard, we need to know the VM's Public IP that can be found here.     
Screenshot:https://imgur.com/x70N2jR
 
Now we know the IP we can connect via Putty (Windows) or the Terminal (Linux).
-Putty: open up putty and fill the host name with you username@PublicIPAddress e.g. akuma@127.0.0.1
-Linux:
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/yQV7sm1
Type your password when prompted.
 
Now lets make sure our new box is up to date:
Its most likely your box will be up to date but its good practice.
Screenshots: https://imgur.com/xS4Bo1e https://imgur.com/9wNh2oo
 
now lets install some dependencies:

once this is complete we can download and build the miner using Git:
 

The miner is now built and ready to use, however if we want it to keep running after we close our SSH connection we will need to run it in screen, so we create a new screen:
 
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/YNkTM7w
 
You will now see a new blank terminal, enter the miners directory:
 
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/uUqUcTR
 
Now we need to start the miner with the correct parameters:
Screenshot: https://imgur.com/UV9qMJm
 

IMPORTANT: Use your own wallet address and email address in the example above.
 
Now your mining! You can check the status of your miner at https://akumaxmr.com, head to the Dashboard and put your wallet address in to see your worker stats.

Over the next few minutes you will see your diff increase while the pool works out your optimum performance. Also it may take a few minutes until your miner is shown on the pool website, this is because it waits for a valid share before you are added.
 
Now we can logout and leave it running in the background, hold "CTRL" and the press "A" then "D" you are now detached from the screen session you can type "exit" to end the SSH connection.
 
If at any point you want to check on the miner you can SSH in like before then:

And that will put you back into the miner session.

*Updated: To show US $ and better VM choice.
*Updated: Added screenshots and reduced donation to lowest amount (1%)

What we offer:

-Low Fees 0%!
-Payouts at low amounts (0.1XMR)
-DDoS Protected 1TB/s
-All devices supported, including ARM
-Global and low latency
-Variable difficulty
-Live stats

30 Days notice will be given in advance of any changes to output payments.

Pool:https://AkumaXMR.com
Twitter:https://twitter.com/AkumaXMRPool