But to be fair, these installs didn't actually have to be installed using a key or even be activated. You get 30 days by default and up to 120 days with the rearm commands. If you are unable to complete your testing in 120 days...then you can simply reload at the end of 120 days and get 120 more days. a
As others have said, you probably need a Technet Pro account...not one of the $199 Technet standard accounts.
hi !
ja det var det jag tänkte när jag såg ditt användarnamn här...
välkommen till Sevenforums Kenneth !
jag tror att jag sett nån mer norrman här...
OK, so far it´s the same info as previously given on the Technet-forum.
but, the BIG question is: are Microsoft going to reduce the number of keys on ALL products, or is the F.A.Q. incorrect ?
30 days, you have got to be kidding, that does not begin to be enough time to test. Respectfully you must not have any experience with large corporate setups. It takes from 3 to 6 months to do all the testing on a system. It has to be tested by many different users, off site, many different connections, many different software’s, lots of meetings with management and vendors for solutions, work-round’s for in house software and programming, etc. etc. etc., then you have to get network approval, IDS/Security approval, desktop approval and the CEO’s administration and CIO approval. I guess it I had only a handful of machines to test and minimal software to test then 30 days would be enough.
To this day we are still trying to work out Windows XP issues to migrate old systems from DOS, Windows 3.11, or Windows NT. You may ask if you are corporate then you have the money and that may be the case but you have to remember that management never cares about IT and it is the last thing on their mind, so we never have any budget to do much of anything. -WS
Actually I do have experience with large corporate setups. I used to work as a systems admin for Thomson Reuters which is a fairly large multinational corporation. Also, I said that you could exercise the rearm trick up to 3 times.
Plus, in a large organization, you must utilize imaging technology to quickly deploy and install operating systems on machines. So, if you can re-image a machine in under 15 minutes and be right back in business with another 120 days total to test..i don't see the showstopper here.
And in any large corporation (like Thomson Reuters), we had enterprise agreements with Microsoft and multiple activation keys in order to use all of the software that we would need. We didn't screw around with $199 technet standard subscriptions.
Maybe I mis-stated that. We have 250 TEST machines in all areas. We have many many thousands of production machines that are not tested. We just took a small cross sample of our machines for testing.
Respectfully, the problem with this logic is you are assuming we can use Enterprise everywhere and that all machines are on a Domain. IT in a huge corporate world is extremely difficult, you have to support 5 different version of Windows 7 and all systems seem to have their super special needs, not to mention all the Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista loads, then all the many servers Windows Based, *IX Based, and IBM OS Based. Office 2010, don’t get me started, there is Office 97 to Office 2010, WordPerfect 5.1 and up, opps did I forget to mention OpenOffice. This is a daunting task at best. -WS
Rearming would be an option however our users do not have any Admin Rights to do so, and not all machines are accessible remotely to have us (IT) do it.
I agree with using technology to deploy, but unfortunately IT is always the last thing on the CEO, or CEO Administration’s minds, no matter how much we beg and prove that we need money to support IT infrastructure our budget is always cut below the minimal for just keeping things working.
Yes we have agreements with Microsoft, but again you are forgetting that before the CEO and managements etc. will approve paying the money to install say Windows 7 they want us to do a tremendous amount of testing. Buying many TechNet Pro accounts give us the software and the testing without making the company commit to a purchase. And yes I know we will do it anyway but the CEO never looks at it like that.
Well, in an enterprise world, if you had an enterprise agreement than you would most likely deploy Windows 7 enterprise edition across the board. I have yet to work in a corporate environment where some machines ran Windows7 starter, some ran home premium, others ran enterprise and a few had Ultimate.
Having an enterprise agreement with Microsoft does not dictate you have to be on a domain.
Anyway, I think this conversation is pointless as a large corporate environment like you describe above would never in a million years purchase 1 license for Technet standard and expect to support their organization. My current company is only 300 people, some in Australia, some in Europe and some in the US and for what we use our Enterprise Agreement renewal cost is almost $250,000 a year. These are not technet organizations.
They are test machines, how are we supposed to test if the user is NOT using the machine? I am not an expert at all their software, nor do I claim to understand how they do their job or their sometimes extremely complex use of software. There is no way I can test all this in a lab. We have to deploy a cross section of test machines to the users so we can verify they work correctly.
Plus these machines have to be restricted just as if they were real machines or we would have an invalid test. We have to do real world tests.
Agreed: We agree to disagree. I never said we only purchased 1 TechNet Pro. All friends here and we are just sharing information. I know it difficult to understand my situation because you are not in it daily. I know this because when we hire new IT staff they are amazed at how different things are here from their previous job. Thanks for the discussion.
All good. :)
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