Microsoft software licencing rant

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John Gray
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Joined: 24 Jan 2010, 08:33
Location: A cathedral city in England

Microsoft software licencing rant

Post by John Gray »

We ordered lots of Remote Desktop Services User Client Access Licences, a copy of Technet Plus, and a few copies of the Windows 7 Professional upgrade, both 32-bit and 64-bit about a week ago, and nothing had appeared on the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Centre.

So I spent about two hours on the phone this afternoon to try to sort all this out, with varying degrees of success, since there were three separate areas involved, each with different phone numbers.

I was told that the same Product Key would apply for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 upgrades - but I would have to download the two ISO files myself - 2.2 GB and 2.9 GB respectively - and burn them to DVDs. So it's fortunate that we don't have an ISP download cap on data transferred, otherwise that would be a fair proportion of a month's quota.

The Remote Access CALs can only be installed when you're on the phone to Microsoft and in front of your Terminal Server's console, so that's fun for a Saturday in Feb when we upgrade the Terminal Server from WS2003 to WS2008.

Technet? Well, it may come in a few days, and it may or may not be on CDs/DVDs, and apologies because the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Centre is not entirely functional after its two/three-month 'upgrade'.
Why does Microsoft make it so fiendishly difficult for users with the labyrinthine complexity of its licensing system? :confused3: :bwaah: :bash:
John Gray

Venison is quiet deer, and quite dear.

JoeP
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Posts: 2048
Joined: 25 Jan 2010, 02:12

Re: Microsoft software licencing rant

Post by JoeP »

Because they can.

Joe
Joe