Vista Licenses.

[Quackers]

Currently with Windows XP we have a Volume License edition which requires no activation or activation server.

 

So for example we buy 30 new laptops with Windows XP Pro, we wipe them and use our version of XP Pro, because the version they come with is not compatable with RIS. We do not buy new licenses because they come with XP Pro Licenses

 

Now how does this work in Vista? If i read correctly EVERY version has to be activated, either normally, or with an internal Activation server.

 

So if this is the case, with our new laptops they are coming licensed for Vista (free upgrade). Can i still just wipe them and put our volume license vista on? I am thinking i cannot because our Activation Server internal will have to have X amount of licences?

 

Does anybody undertstand what i'm saying :?:

[ChrisC]

I understand what you're saying, but to be honest, except explaining what/how the activation works, I haven't found how schools agreements etc of volume licensing will work.

 

It does appear that every instance of vista needs a form of activation.

 

Hense why we're giving it 12-18months + until we look at it.

 

Chris

[Ric_]

Grumbledook might have an idea... he is working with MS as an 'early adopter' to see how things go.

 

If he doesn't know (or MS won't let him tell you), he may have a contact at MS for you.

[GrumbleDook]

I am waiting for some documentation about WDS and activation at the moment ... from conversations I have had with some MS partners you either activate each machine or have an activation key server ... I am hoping to have a 'get started' guide ready for BETT ...

 

Check out the Technet Webcasts over the next month for more information ... and don't forget that there are Technet webcasts available via iTunes now too ...

 

As soon as I have any decent info I will pass it on.

[eejit]

It's really frustrating how long this is all taking

I've had the DVD for a fortnight now but cannot send it out to a room as a trial. :x

Ramesys have certainly dragged their heels every step of the way, but none of the regular Microsoft licensing people seem to have any training in Windows Vista licensing and treat you like some random drunk that's called them up and is talking gibberish - that's MS licensing in Britain, Holland and America.

[ChrisC]

no wonder they think you're drunk if you're phoning holland!

 

Only joking, i can only say it's either gonna be a hit or miss, time will tell how this will all work out.

 

Chris

[john]

Must admit I asked Ramesys again and they said they should have Office 2007 for now and looking at Jan / Feb for Vista, its getting to be a piss take really!

 

Can someone say why they are having difficulties! My Select Agreement I hold with Insight for a business licence has got Vista, and I also have it from Insight for Education via Select again, which is how I licence via the SSAT but just via ramesys, if everyone else has it, including other education licences someones messing up somewhere!

 

What makes the SSAT via Ramesys so different! Fine its probably a very large account but its not as if Ramesys have anything to do appart from flog us the disks at £20 a throw! I had one school that was really really keen to get on to it, they spent a lot of money on new kit and the licences to go with it all with SA ready for Vista and now were dragging our heels waiting for a media set so I can start testing and evaluating and working out what we are going to have to bin, replace, upgrade etc...

[eejit]

Ramesys have pi**ed me off 100% in the last year. I know of someone who ordered Symanec AV 10 from them and it took... *drum role*... 6 MONTHS from order to receiving the key. So much about them recently has made me feel that they are going under.

[john]

Must admit there has been a few issues recently with them for other licences where I have gone AAAAARGHH!!!!!! Symantec stuff being one of them! Lets see what happens!

[eejit]

Even though I am in London our Ramesys contacts are in Birmingham. We spent almost a full day trying to call them last week. In the end we tried the Nottingham office and were told "Yeah, we've been trying to reach them all day too - we think that they must not be answering the phones today" 8O

 

Nice.

[GrumbleDook]

Being honest ... Ramesys and Symantec .. not a good combination. The communication between the two has always been difficult in my experience.

 

I have my Office 2007 media now ... and I am working from and updated RC2 disc for the early rollout. I am just waiting for info about getting the .admx/.adml stuff sorted so I don't have to make major changes to the existing domain (ie ... getting longhorn server running).

 

I suppose I can understand Ramesys being slow sending stuff out ... if I can't get info about "this is how you roll out Vista" the last thing they will want to do is send out software that is just going to cause problems for schools ... we are pretty ok as we would run things on test networks first (honest) ... but imagine a primary school with a part-time techie from the LA that hands him/her the media and says "we have just bought 20 copies ... install it while you are here today" ...

 

Has anyone else heard if Ramesys have got anyone that can give advice on rolling Vista out, the last person I spoke with said that they couldn't really yet.

[john]

My Veritas set should arrive this week, i've been waiting for them to get it in since 11d was launched! GRRRR! Blasted Auditors are on my back weekly about it!

 

Still waiting for Office 2007 from them as well, should be with Veritas I hope!

 

I am not wanting Ramesys to tell me how to do it with Vista, they couldn't organise a party in a pub, thats what I get paid to do, I am paid to test, work out and support but they are stopping me doing this at present. There is only so far I can go with my Ultimate Edition which I have, but I want to put the final volume Business Edition on my other machine and then get working and then I can work this out for myself. .

 

At this rate I am going to be able to get new PCs off the shelf with Vista on quicker than I can with Ramesys. I have the test bed network ready to rock and roll, its identical to the site in that the GPOs, etc are the same as they are the same machines so it allows me to test very well, but someones peeing around here and its getting on my nerves! My fuse is very short already and a key selling point for me who wants to get a better job is if I can say, show and prove I have done a sucessful Vista Migration, I can sell that to places and hope they like it as well and think hmmm that could be useful, but at this rate I will be retired before I get a volume set for it.

[Gatt]

Media? What's that then???

I havent had any MVLS/Technet media since the initial shipment when we subscribed in July...

Hsve to download everything from either MVLS or Technet..

 

Running Vista Bus. on my Tablet PC. only problems so far with with the rotation utility and bluetooth drivers from Toshiba don't like Vista at present..

[CyberNerd]

According to a survey of 240 IT Directors and Helpdesk Managers of large UK and International organizations only 5% claimed they would seek to deploy Windows Vista in 2007.

http://www.axiossystems.com/six/en/corporate/news/detail.php/194

 

From reading this post I can see why. Will definitely be waiting for SP1...or 2 for this.

[eejit]

Who cares what large corporations would do - they are in a totally different situation. There is no such thing as the "Schools Agreement" for them - so upgrading to Vista would have enormous cost implications.

[CyberNerd]

we bought XP licenses outright, so with hardware costs we also have enormous cost implications whereas we can run XP until such a time when vista offers an advantage to education, at the moment I don't see that it does.

 

I just don't see why anyone is rushing into this, wait until there are sufficient howto's/walkthroughs and MS have ironed out some of the bugs with a service pack.

[spc-rocket]

I agree with CyberNerd,

 

I simplycannot see any advantage of using vista or longhorn server (its not even out until 07/08 - for the sake of testing let hope its out on 08 than in07!) because the windows server 2003 / XP pro combination is very good and its stable and both of these products have matured to a SP2 level.

 

Investing brain time and also licensing and money on vista is just waste of time and money in my opinion. MS will not drop support for windows server 2003 or XP for some time now esp. Vista server will be out in 07/08 as i said ealier.

 

Seems to me that people like to play around and jump to the latest system without actually justifying the reasons. Its all great having on your home machine/test networ etc. but for god sake wait fro the proper documentation and deployment guides!!

 

Ash.

[Quackers]

Just installed vista over the network, all went OK. I'm confused as to why it never asked for a CD key or any activation.

 

As for reasons for running Vista? Well we have just had 8 new PC's for a special office. Using that as my Vista test lab, the PC running vista is a lot faster and smoother than the 7 PC's Windows XP. I've gotta buy Windows Licenses for them so why not buy Vista ones and use Vista as its faster.

 

So far all the software i have tried works fine, they are pusing out MSI's with group policy from Server 2003 fine, its smooth, fast and looks nice.

 

Any PC's (apart from new ones) will continue to run Windows XP. Just any new hardware i want to put Vista on. If all is OK in this small suite its going on 70 new pc's i'm getting in the summer.

[Gatt]

Quakers, i wondered this as well until I tried to activate it

If you just click "Activate Windows Now" it wont play ball.. however, if you click "Change Product Key" then enter your MAK/KMS key it will activate automatically....

[CyberNerd]

the PC running vista is a lot faster and smoother than the 7 PC's Windows XP

 

hey Quackers, you just broke the EULA already lol.

 

You may conduct internal benchmark testing of the .NET Framework component of the OS Components (".NET Component"). You may disclose the results of any benchmark test of the .NET Component, provided that you comply with the following terms: (1) you must disclose all the information necessary for replication of the tests, including complete and accurate details of your benchmark testing methodology, the test scripts/cases, tuning parameters applied, hardware and software platforms tested, the name and version number of any third-party testing tool used to conduct the testing, and complete source code for the benchmark suite/harness that is developed by or for you and used to test both the .NET Component and the competing implementation(s); (2) you must disclose the date(s) that you conducted the benchmark tests, along with specific version information for all Microsoft software products tested, including the .NET Component; (3) your benchmark testing was performed using all performance tuning and best practice guidance set forth in the product documentation and/or on Microsoft's support Web sites, and uses the latest updates, patches, and fixes available for the .NET Component and the relevant Microsoft operating system; (4) it shall be sufficient if you make the disclosures provided for above at a publicly available location such as a Web site, so long as every public disclosure of the results of your benchmark test expressly identifies the public site containing all required disclosures; and (5) nothing in this provision shall be deemed to waive any other right that you may have to conduct benchmark testing. The foregoing obligations shall not apply to your disclosure of the results of any customized benchmark test of the .NET Component, whereby such disclosure is made under confidentiality in conjunction with a bid request by a prospective customer, such customer's application(s) are specifically tested and the results are only disclosed to such specific customer. Notwithstanding any other agreement you may have with Microsoft, if you disclose such benchmark test results, Microsoft shall have the right to disclose the results of benchmark tests it conducts of your products that compete with the .NET Component, provided it complies with the same conditions above.

 

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973265.aspx

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/29/microsoft_vista_eula_analysis/

[john]

You can install Vista on machines in 30 day "eval" mode as it were without a serial number and in any version, but before it will activate you have to put your Key in it and then activate, and if you've put the wrong version of Windows on you got trouble boss.

[john]

Also, with this KMS, some of the comment are getting excitied about it, but they clearly haven't read the MS Activation whitepaper as they should know that KMS requires 25 Vista Workstations to be live on the system as a minimum before it will do anything at all, I am assuming that they have not managed to break that bit out of it, so its good for businesses to steal it but useless for the home user.

[Geoff]

its good for businesses to steal it but useless for the home user.

 

See this thread.

[mrforgetful]

What does this mean:

 

1. STORAGE. You may store one copy of the software on a storage device, such as a network server. You may use that copy to install the software on any other device to which a license has been assigned.

[srochford]

I'd guess it means what it says! You can copy the CD onto a server and use that copy to install your workstations.

 

It had never occurred to me to check that this was allowable - we buy most of our student machines without optical drives so installing would be a bit difficult if you couldn't put it on a server!