MS select licensing

[Jobos]

I was talking to the ICT co-ordinator of a local school last week and she is planning to replace the failing server this summer. The new server will be running server 2003, the same OS as the old one so would the old MS select license be transferable to the new server as the old server would be scrapped and no longer in use?

Would the same apply to CALs? As long as the same server version is installed surely the old CALs would still be valid?

How about changing from server 2003 R1 to server 2003 R2. Would that need a new licence?

[kmount]

Certainly from R1>R2 would be a new license, but I'm not sure on the other questions.

[RobC]

R1 to R2 is a new license, but other than that if it is anything other than OEM, then it is transferrable as long as the other machine is permanently decommissioned. Only OEM (system builder) licenses are tied to the machine they are originally installed on.

Even then, there is a small quirk to that though, as if you add Software Assurance to an OEM license within 90 days of purchasing the OEM license, you gain all the benefits of volume licensing with regards to transfers.

Hope that helps.

[Jobos]

Cheers both :-)

[Jobos]

Just a thought... you say R1 to R2 is a new license. Would the same apply to the CALs? i.e. could the same CAL's be used even when the server has been upgraded to R2?

[Michael]

R1 > R2 is definitely a new license, but you may also want to consider Windows Server 2008. A lot of people speak highly of it here (mostly).

As for licenses, chances are you have more than one server on site, so setting licensing as Per Device or Per User is much better than Per Server. Number of concurrent connections.

To answer your question though, so long as the old server is decommissioned, then yes it's fine.