Free one year subscription to Microsoft technet

avrc · 3 Jun 2009 at 09:57

There's no small print anywhere tying you into a full priced renewal is there?

[timko] · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:00

avrc said:
There's no small print anywhere tying you into a full priced renewal is there?

I haven't checked but if you've already signed up then you'll know that at no stage did they ask you for credit/debit card details. As such, if they were to try and pull a renewal involving money then they've got no way of automatically taking the money. Simple

BloodyL · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:08

[timko];14204155 said:
To me at the time it made sense that if MS are giving us TechNet for free then they won't also be giving us full MSDN like access for it (lifetime product usage etc). Hence the trial length only keys.

But then you came in with your query about trial length or not. I was then myself not 100% sure so I decided to remove my, reasonable, assumption. Turns out I didn't need to but sorry for catching you out

Cool, no problems!

avrc · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:10

Well signed up, downloaded Office Pro 2007 but can't get a key. Just gives me an error

nade · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:10

Am i the only one who is naturally suspicious of these freebies that I think are too good to be true?

I like everyone else followed the first link to click on buy. But straight away I spotted the very stretched TechNet logo at the top, also the page doesn't resize when changing the size of the IE window.

Juniper · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:13

nade said:
Am i the only one who is naturally suspicious of these freebies that I think are too good to be true?

I like everyone else followed the first link to click on buy. But straight away I spotted the very stretched TechNet logo at the top, also the page doesn't resize when changing the size of the IE window.

The pages to upgrade from within Technet look the same..

nade · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:15

anewhope said:
The pages to upgrade from within Technet look the same..

Are these pages linked from TechNet directly?

Edit: Just tried the UK link using Firefox instead and after allowing noscript, it looks better than in IE, bizzare. Maybe it's because i'm using IE6 and not 7 or 8.

Ziggy · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:19

avrc said:
Well signed up, downloaded Office Pro 2007 but can't get a key. Just gives me an error

Yep, I'm now getting an error when trying to get keys.

Edit: now working.

Juniper · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:20

nade said:
Are these pages linked from TechNet directly?

From within Technet, if you go through Manage Subscriptions and on the dropdown cookie trail along the top select Buy, then after you've selected Worldwide and Renew it brings you to a very 90'sesque looking page with stretched logos on the om2.one.microsoft.com domain, the same one that you go through for the trial.

Rab · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:22

thanks for link

DragonWoLf · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:22

ah awesome signed up!

[timko] · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:29

Ziggy said:
Yep, I'm now getting an error when trying to get keys.

Same here, I think their servers are getting pounded a bit. Someone from Neowin posted the offer on a few popular deals websites. Also, there's a few entries on Digg that I'm sure one of which will go nuclear soon...

http://digg.com/search?s=technet&sort=newest

:cool:

Juniper · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:33

[timko];14204599 said:
Same here, I think their servers are getting pounded a bit. Someone from Neowin posted the offer on a few popular deals websites. Also, there's a few entries on Digg that I'm sure one of which will go nuclear soon...

http://digg.com/search?s=technet&sort=newest

I found it went slow, kicked up errors but now it's functioning as before. I've saved all of my keys though, incase it goes into meltdown.

Rilot · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:36

This has got to be a mistake.
No way would MS give away every product in it's portfolio for free.

Signed up anyway though

avrc · 3 Jun 2009 at 10:59

Looks like it may be a mistake. Just went to try and get an office key as it wasn't working before and now I'm no longer authorised to download anything or get any keys.

davetherave2 · 3 Jun 2009 at 11:00

awesome thanks for the link.

TheSwede · 3 Jun 2009 at 11:04

avrc said:
Looks like it may be a mistake. Just went to try and get an office key as it wasn't working before and now I'm no longer authorised to download anything or get any keys.

I got that also, try and sign back in again it worked for me.. and I am downloading Office 2007 as I am typing this so it is still working..

avrc · 3 Jun 2009 at 11:05

Tried it mate, signed out properly and back in but everything is still grayed out and the keys page says I'm not authorised.

Edit: Tried a 3rd time - seems I had to restart IE as well. Now works again. It's up and down like a yo yo right now. Still getting an error when trying to get a key.

jaybee · 3 Jun 2009 at 11:07

[timko];14204400 said:
I haven't checked but if you've already signed up then you'll know that at no stage did they ask you for credit/debit card details. As such, if they were to try and pull a renewal involving money then they've got no way of automatically taking the money. Simple

But what about the address specified in the sign up? They have mine, is that bad? Does it matter?

jaybee · 3 Jun 2009 at 11:11

So can someone confirm, if we install windows 7 using one of these keys, what happens in a years time? Will it still work? What about upgrading to the retail copy of windows 7...this will or will not be free? OR even possible?
Ta