Staff Licensing

[ZeroHour]

Hi

We are under the schools agreement with MS.

All very good expect before vista came along we were allowed to give staff a copy of XP pro for home use as long as they were employees.

This was not a problem as pro did not have activation (SA edition), how does this work now though in Vista?

Its more for myself (selfish lol) and to clear up what the rules and processes are in case staff ask.

Do we get ultimate? or what edition?

How do we activate this?

 

Cheers for any tips on this.

[mrforgetful]

Schools get Business Edition unless you're on a Volume License Agreement in which case you can get Enterprise.

 

I had no idea you were licensed to use Windows XP at home. Office yeh, but Windows XP?

[Netman]

You'd get a multiple activation key (MAK) I guess, these would activate direct to MS over the internet...

Having said that my MAK gives me 250 activations and I have 220 licensed in School under my agreement, therefore it looks as though the right to use at home is being limited to 30 installs...

[mrforgetful]

I'm confused as to why just because you're not using your licenses at school you'd be entitled to use them on your home computer. Can someone point me to some official documentation on it?

[ZeroHour]

I'm confused as to why just because you're not using your licenses at school you'd be entitled to use them on your home computer. Can someone point me to some official documentation on it?

Thats not how it worked under XP. Each staff member owns a lic (for the duration of there employment).

Its under the same scheme office is. Check out:

http://www.microsoft.com/Education/schoolagreement.mspx

Read the word document on the left. It explains it in a little detail there. Its called "Work at home" rights but no idea how it applies to vista.

It also suggests in that document Schools Agreement people get ENTERPRISE not business.

 

Any thoughts?

[mrforgetful]

Interesting.

 

I know Schools Agreement is Enterprise, it's a VLA like any other. Our problem here is that we don't belong to one, we buy our licenses outright as and when we need them and aren't on an Agreement.

[DMcCoy]

I never fill the box in for the work at home rights, makes my life easier

 

Ultimate does not use volume licensing, each PC has to be acitvated individually by phoning microsoft, asking for a key and waiting 3 days. This uses the agreement number so I asume only an agreement administrator can do this. Basically, don't go with Vista Ultimate.

 

Enterprise does use VLK in the form of MAK and KMS keys. You will need to use MAK keys, you can get them via the Volume licensing site (I have 250 atm).

[DMcCoy]

Oh, and don't forget its only an XP/Vista upgrade, they need something to upgrade from still :|

[ZeroHour]

Yeh just more if the licensing allows me to get a copy of ultimate (for testing of course )

When you say it does not use VLK do you mean you cant get the use of ultimate thanks to "work at home"/SA?

 

Cheers

[DMcCoy]

Yeh just more if the licensing allows me to get a copy of ultimate (for testing of course )

When you say it does not use VLK do you mean you cant get the use of ultimate thanks to "work at home"/SA?

 

Cheers

 

You can use Vista Ultimate with SA. There is no concept of a Vista Ultimate volume license key, it uses the same retail licensing system - thats why you have to activate every copy manually.

 

It should be fine if you only want one or two

[spc-rocket]

Hi,

 

Sorry if this sounds strange but why are you interested in deploying vista to their home PC? I would just give them Windows XP Pro which is more than enough even to run Office 2007.

 

I just think people need to sit down and really think before jumping on the bandwagon of the latest stuff. Don't get me wrong i'm all for new OS etc but when planned correctly and the product has matured to at least SP1 level.

 

Two things i don't really get at the moment, people upgrading to vista and office 2007 niether is honestly required in schools. There is nothing that Windows 2003 Server + Windows XP Pro SP2 and Office 2003 Pro can't do that the latest incarnation of MS OS does.

 

I don't think MS will drop support for Windows XP yet - remember they extended Windows 98 support even after they ended so it'll be a similar thing that happens to XP.

 

From a PC purchase wise yes its worth getting stations that are powerful enough to run vista as you would consider the lifecycle of the PC and in 2 years time you may upgrade to vista but it too early in my opinion. At our place the scheduled upgrade to vista is summer 2009!!.

 

Ash.

[ZeroHour]

Its more the fact that we are wondering. We dont plan to offer it but its good to know about these things.

[zag]

Just for your interest if anyone is on the microsoft sponsored school agreements you can request ultimate licenses by going to "software assurance benefits" on the licensing website. They will send you a vista ultimate disk then you can request as many license keys as you want through the SA call center.

 

This is over and above the normal business licenses you get.

[DMcCoy]

You can, but I didn't get the ones I asked for :/

 

Don't forget that each key will only work on one machine.