TechNet Subscription

Gman · 24 Nov 2006 at 17:26

Anyone know anything about this ? or actually have a subscription ?

Had a quick look and its £283.00 a year and for that you get access to I think all of Microsoft's products such as XP, Vista, office etc for evaluation purposes without any time limit on the evaluation.

Now when you weigh this up £290 for a year doesn't sound bad considering Vista Ultimate will set you back about £320 ish.

Now my question here is what happens when the 12 months is up and you don't renew ? Does your software keys get canceled or what or is it just that your access is removed from Tecknet but the software you've already got is still fine ? Just seems a gray area as they class there downloads as evaluations which to me says trial.

From what I can make out it's similar to an MSDN account so any of you guys on MSDN know if you product keys expire once your MSDN account is canceled ?

Gman · 24 Nov 2006 at 18:44

only thing I can find in the FAQ is this

All TechNet Volume Licenses expire with the license agreement enrollment. Open License subscriptions are 2 year subscriptions effective from the date they are recorded through Microsoft Licensing.

is based on that I assume they do run out them, either at the end of the sub or within 2 years of the sub start.

Gman · 24 Nov 2006 at 19:37

right will give that idea a miss then MSDNAA it is then

Gman · 25 Nov 2006 at 12:55

stoofa said:
TechNet is not designed as a way to get around licesning and the need to buy your MS software.
Read the license agreement for TechNet and you'll see that just because there is now the lack of 180 days hard-limit on the software you can't just buy it and use the OS indefinitely.

As for Ultimate costing £320 - have they actually released the price of the Retail upgrades yet?
Last time I checked they hadn't - insider info?

thanks mate, no the £320 a mentioned was just a guestimate

but from the T's an C's it seems that the only rule is you can't use it in a production environment or for-profit so where would the average home user come under this as I wouldn't be using it for production purposes or profit.