Ultimate -> Enterprise

Windows 7 Enterprise Edition Customer Benefits - Windows for your Business - The Windows Blog

Windows 7 Enterprise edition is designed to address the needs of our enterprise customers who have needs around advanced data protection, enabling user productivity and streamlining their PC management. Windows 7 Enterprise is part of the Windows Optimized Desktop offering, which also includes the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) tools and will only be available to customers with Microsoft Software Assurance on their Windows client licenses.
If you are an enterprise customer with Software Assurance on your existing Windows licenses when Windows 7 is released, then you automatically get the rights to deploy Windows 7 Enterprise to PCs in your environment. Additionally, customers who buy Windows 7 Professional and add Software Assurance will also have rights to deploy the Enterprise edition.

Win 7 Enterprise is available to Technet subscribers and they can obtain one MAK type key. I was wondering whether that Technet key for Enterprise will actually suffice for permanently activating the Enterprise version and whether there was any advantage to running Enterprise vs Ultimate?

Well, that's the question I guess I was asking: How does Enterprise and the MAK Technet key work, but I guess it's not really important since I'm using Ultimate with one of the Technet generated retail keys.

I also wonder how many times one can reactivate the retail keys provided by Technet though? I read somewhere on this site it was limited to ten reactivations per key, but I wonder if that's actually correct, since I doubt anyone has yet actually tested that. Since it is technically a full "retail" key, I suppose if the reactivation limit, whatever it is, was reached and it stopped reactivating, one could always call MS and request that they over-ride that or whatever it is that they do over the phone to help people with retail keys that stop re-activating. Or perhaps there is a different policy applied to those technet keys.

I also wonder if there is a built in time factor like there was with XP, iirc. With XP, iirc, if one didn't try to reactivate for a six month period, one's key would reactivate with no problem. I wonder if there is some similar kind of time period reset thing that applies to 7's retail keys.

(This is all just academic curiosity/interest since with the number of keys one can automatically get from Technet, it is unlikely one would ever have a problem.)

harpua said:

Well, that's the question I guess I was asking: How does Enterprise and the MAK Technet key work, but I guess it's not really important since I'm using Ultimate with one of the Technet generated retail keys.

I also wonder how many times one can reactivate the retail keys provided by Technet though? I read somewhere on this site it was limited to ten reactivations per key, but I wonder if that's actually correct, since I doubt anyone has yet actually tested that. Since it is technically a full "retail" key, I suppose if the reactivation limit, whatever it is, was reached and it stopped reactivating, one could always call MS and request that they over-ride that or whatever it is that they do over the phone to help people with retail keys that stop re-activating. Or perhaps there is a different policy applied to those technet keys.

I also wonder if there is a built in time factor like there was with XP, iirc. With XP, iirc, if one didn't try to reactivate for a six month period, one's key would reactivate with no problem. I wonder if there is some similar kind of time period reset thing that applies to 7's retail keys.

(This is all just academic curiosity/interest since with the number of keys one can automatically get from Technet, it is unlikely one would ever have a problem.)

Windows Volume Activation
Windows Volume Activation | Guide List | Vista & Windows Server 2008

KMS: You don't need to enter a key. Windows will look for a KMS server on your domain network. KMS server activates Windows, and KMS server talks to the Microsoft Mothership. Your Windows must be in contact with this KMS server at least once every 6 months. Since KMS "just works" (no need to enter key, etc.), this is the default.

MAK: You enter a key (same key throughout your organization). Windows contacts Microsoft to activate. Your # of activations is decreased when you activate. This is permanent (no need to check in every 6 months). This is intended for systems without access to a KMS server (either you don't have the resources to deploy KMS, or it's for a system that's rarely connected to the company network).

Companies can use a mix of KMS and MAK depending on what's easiest for them, since they feed from the same license pool.

Actually, all MSDN/TechNet Windows keys (yes, even those "RTL" keys for non-Enterprise) are MAK: it directly contacts Microsoft when you activate, and it depletes your activation pool for that key by one.