What to buy?

Got that one covered Doc!

On TechNet and MSDN for paid subscribers the final finished verison of 7 has been available for download since August 6th. Along with any finished products you can also try out vaious beta and RC releases for MS office products as well as the Server 2008 RC2.

The option for the backup disk however is the 10/22 wait to see those shipped out being 7 general release date next week! Yeee Haaa...!

You'll have to excuse the slight outburst since it's been a long wait for all too many especially for those who were testing the betas as well as running the RCs!

jsjslim said:

Regarding Technet, I've thought of that before. But aren't the provided software for "Evaluation" only? In other words, not for gaming, browsing, etc?

It all depends on your definition of "Evaluation"

All my computers are Science Experiments doing Evaluations of everything a computer can do

There you go! I don't even need a subscription here since I run into loads of other utilities and small programs to try out on Windows is general. In fact I'm still backing things up for the last two versions to see if those run next week!

One other option for those with a small technical business is the Microsoft partner program. Costs are slightly lower than those for Technet and provide a less extensive range of available software downloads and keys but the EULA is for Internal use rather than evaluation. This is of course better for those who feel that their actual use could not be classed as evaluation

Barman58 said:

One other option for those with a small technical business is the Microsoft partner program. Costs are slightly lower than those for Technet and provide a less extensive range of available software downloads and keys but the EULA is for Internal use rather than evaluation. This is of course better for those who feel that their actual use could not be classed as evaluation

Thanks Nigel, I might look into that...

~Lordbob

LB,

If you are going into your support business, then the sales and marketing support may be something you will find useful.

The problem is that for a service type company like you were thinking of you probably benefit from both this and technet, just the access to install media can make Technet worthwhile for anyone who deals with private users who will quite possibly have lost their disks

Barman58 said:

LB,

If you are going into your support business, then the sales and marketing support may be something you will find useful.

The problem is that for a service type company like you were thinking of you probably benefit from both this and technet, just the access to install media can make Technet worthwhile for anyone who deals with private users who will quite possibly have lost their disks

I plan to keep my TechNet for my "personal evaluation" as well as the disks I can get.

~Lordbob

The partner option would be one consideration for someone I talk with regularly who is in the process of starting a small pc repair business. He doesn't have a TechNet or MSDN account presently trying to keep the overhead down a bit.