Windows 8 RTM on TechNet Aug 15th

pparks1 said:

With that said, given all of the software that you get, it's $199 for the 1st year and $149 a year thereafter....

Despite the Australian dollar being stronger than the US dollar, for Technet Standard it is $337 for the first year and $260 per year thereafter. I don't see how they can justify the 40% higher price. The professional subscription is $618/$437.

The key limit on my subscription, which I purchased last October, is 2 MAXIMUM for any product. There are no products I get 3 keys for.

I'll probably download the 8 RTM, but I'd be surprised if it remains on my test system for more than 3 days, that will be plenty long enough for it to drive me to despair.

chessdragon136 said:

TanyaC said:

The key limit on my subscription, which I purchased last October, is 2 MAXIMUM for any product. There are no products I get 3 keys for.

You are right that you only get 2 keys, but each key can be used on 10 pc's simultaneously..

Now you got yourself a bargain...

But back on topic, I watched the Windows Weekly the other day and I'm sure she said around the 1st week of August, not THE 1st of August.. But that is nit-picking!

If you listen close at the 26:46 mark she said TechNet and MSDN on Aug 1 around Noon.(noon is kind of muffled) Just prior to that she said that business customers would get it the 1st week in Aug. It goes by so quick it easy to miss and they don't say anything else about it. I am assuming that is Noon PST. So we will see.

Jim

TanyaC said:

Despite the Australian dollar being stronger than the US dollar, for Technet Standard it is $337 for the first year and $260 per year thereafter. I don't see how they can justify the 40% higher price. The professional subscription is $618/$437.

Yeah, welcome to Australia. That is just the way it is. I actually work for an Australian company, but reside in the United States.

TanyaC said:

The key limit on my subscription, which I purchased last October, is 2 MAXIMUM for any product. There are no products I get 3 keys for.

Are you not aware that these are multiple activation keys? While you only get 2 physical keys, you can activate them over and over and over again. Not to mention, you get 2 keys for Windows 7 Home Premium, 2 keys for Windows 7 Professional, 2 keys for Windows 7 Ultimate...and all of them can be activated over and over and over again. And don't forget the Vista keys, and the XP keys, and the upcoming Windows 8 keys.

Microsoft cut back from 10 physical keys, which allowed 10 activations at the same time because people didn't have a need for 100 running machines and they started selling their keys. Small computer shops did the same thing. Buy a copy of Technet standard for $199, and then sell each of the 10 license keys for $100 each, and they were making hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for each copy of Technet they bought. These shifty people made thousands selling technet keys.

My Technet sub gave me 150 windows 7 keys. 30 keys per Version.
Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 7 Ultimate N, Windows 7 Ultimate KN, 10 keys of each one.
Towards the end of my sub they did change the terms and the amount of keys, KN Keys were pruned and KN was listed with N.

EDIT: I have to look at my list, but it may have been 40 keys per version.
K is listed with the Normal version, and N and KN are listed together.

I can still log on and look at all the keys I claimed (except I don't see the ones that were pruned with the change mentioned above)

pparks1 said:

TanyaC said:

The key limit on my subscription, which I purchased last October, is 2 MAXIMUM for any product. There are no products I get 3 keys for.

Are you not aware that these are multiple activation keys? While you only get 2 physical keys, you can activate them over and over and over again. Not to mention, you get 2 keys for Windows 7 Home Premium, 2 keys for Windows 7 Professional, 2 keys for Windows 7 Ultimate...and all of them can be activated over and over and over again. And don't forget the Vista keys, and the XP keys, and the upcoming Windows 8 keys.

Yes, I was aware that they are multiple activation. And I believe up to 10 machines per key. Not that I have a need to run more than one version of Windows 7 per PC.

Looks like Mary Jo's sources were not real accurate. Windows 8 went RTM on Aug 1 and sent to OEM, but TechNet will get it on Aug 15. Two more weeks to see what it is really like. Of course there will be a lot of "leaks" but I don't trust any of those. Probably lots of new rumors about the final changes but we will know in two weeks.

Jim

I'll be grabbing a copy from Technet and testing it out on my test computers to see how the interface works with a non-touch environment.