Select licence servers

[irsprint]

We have a select licence for desktop machines, I m new to select licence, I ve been informed on how it works, if I buy a PC witht he lowest Windows Licence (windows XP Home) I use the select licence to upgrade to anything I want (professional, vista, 7) free of charge is this correct?

Do I need to buy a cheap office licence to upgrade to any version of office?

If I m to buy a new server, does this work int he same way? ie if I want a server with windows server 2008 and sql server 2008 how would I go abou this witht he select licencing format?

I couldnt find the information on google, so any advice would be appriciated.

[Busybub]

Er, NO, my understanding (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) is:

If you have a select license (you pay for it once) you own it outright on a perpetual basis and can downgrade to the equivalent operating systems which preceded the ones you have. ie if you have Vista select licenses, you can use Vista/XP/2000 workstation/ME/98/95/3.1. You cannot upgrade to 7 on it's release unless you buy another license to replace your existing ones.

If this is something you want to do, you need to switch to a School Agreement with software assurance, but you pay for a license on an annual basis.

Re: Office. If you have a select license you own that version and can downgrade in a similar fashion as above. If you want to be able to upgrade when new version come out, you're probably looking at a Desktop License under the School Agreement which gives you the desktop OS and Office.

If you want 2008 Server and SQL, you buy the select licenses or have them under a School Agreement in the same way as the desktop OS and Office. You'll need SQL CALs.

Welcome to the world of Microsoft Licensing... even some MS licensing people aren't really sure how it works!

[irsprint]

thanks for info. its is confusing! just found that i have desktop licence one, how does yhat work? what do i need for servers, where i can ipgrade for free per version

[Busybub]

thanks for info. its is confusing! just found that i have desktop licence one, how does yhat work? what do i need for servers, where i can ipgrade for free per version

If you have desktop licenses under School Agreement that include the OS and Office you can upgrade to the next release.

Servers can be licensed in the same way but may not be cost effective depending on the interval between Server releases. For example, select licenses for Server 2008 are cheap, ISA licenses are not.

Sounds like you need to clarify your situation with the reseller who you purchased the licenses from (presumably your bursar would have paperwork).

Failing that, if you get no joy, send me a PM and I can track down an email address for somebody who works in MS licensing and you can confirm with them directly. Worst case, if you do have a School Agreement and it goes unpaid, you'll get an email from them anyway!