technet question

I have a question regarding technet. i am about to buy a one year subcription to technet, but i want to now if the keys they offer in technet expire when my subscription expires

No the keys remain valid for installed software.

Right now, TechNet keys are perpetual and will remain valid even after your subscription expires. And there can be several activations per key, too, so they are also easier to use than regular retail keys.

But the Terms of Service also prohibits you from using TechNet keys for anything other than "evaluation". So using it to install Windows on your primary machine for daily use would be against the license terms and would thus be "piracy". Microsoft makes almost no effort to enforce this (though they will track you down if you try to sell the keys or if they detect a suspicious number of activations), but there's no guarantee that they'll always be this lax. And if they wanted to, they could change this policy at any time (e.g., by making the keys expire if your account does). It's unlikely that they will since they've been this lax for a long time, but you never know if Steve Ballmer might have a change of heart one day.

Hey DataMan47 Even if Microsoft did change the rules on the fly they would face alot of legal issues since people bought this under the terms set forth now. I can see them changing it for new users but if you own an account they have to allow the keys to work forever.

Thats like you leasing a car with x miles allowed and half way through they say were only allowing 3000 miles a year. You would be grandfathered.

But if you dont be a total jerk and give out 1000 keys to everyone you will never have a problem.

Agree but what Im saying is if you buy it now you Legal own the licenses for Windows 7 or whatever software from now till eternity.

Yes they can change the terms for new users or when you renew, but if you don't renew they are still bound to the terms set forth in the original contract they cant just stop letting your key work unless there is some abuse.

I recently purchased a TechNet subcription, TechNet Direct Retail. This is my 1st experience with TechNet and I was wondering if anyone knows when Windows 7 would appear on TechNet in relation to the RTM date. Thanks.

Dorfdad said:

Hey DataMan47 Even if Microsoft did change the rules on the fly they would face alot of legal issues since people bought this under the terms set forth now. I can see them changing it for new users but if you own an account they have to allow the keys to work forever.

Thats like you leasing a car with x miles allowed and half way through they say were only allowing 3000 miles a year. You would be grandfathered.

I haven't read all of the terms, but I don't think that MSFT said that they'd give you a perpetual license that never expires. They do say that you can use it only for evaluation, and it would seem that a perpetual license would fly in the face of that.

So a better analogy would be this: You are leasing a car, and the car company says that you can't leave the country with the car. But they never check for that, and some of your buddies tell you that you can even drive as many miles as you want. Then the company says that you can't drive more than 3K miles. They can do that because they never promised unlimited miles. And second, they can justify it by saying "if you never leave the country, you wouldn't need to use more than 3K miles per year anyway, right?". The key here is what you mean by "allowed": if they "allowed" perpetual licenses as a part of the agreement, then it's much harder to change, but if they "allowed" perpetual licenses because they never bothered to say otherwise, then they are free to change that on a whim.

I'm not saying that they would do this. But that they could. Especially now that more and more people are using TechNet as a way to "buy" their stuff at a huge discount.

Dorfdad said:

But if you dont be a total jerk and give out 1000 keys to everyone you will never have a problem.

This is the important part!! keep them for your personal use.