msft Microsoft slashes product key allowances for TechNet subscribers

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Microsoft slashes product key allowances for TechNet subscribers

Summary: For the second time in two years, Microsoft has significantly cut the benefits it offers to TechNet subscribers. Will the newly reduced allotments of Windows and Office product keys really reduce piracy or just annoy Microsoft?s customers?

Microsoft?s TechNet program is one of the best bargains in personal computing. For an annual subscription price of $349, TechNet Professional subscribers get access to nearly every release of every operating system (desktop and server) and Office suite.

The licenses are valid for evaluation purposes only, but the downloadable products and product keys are typically Retail products, indistinguishable from shrink-wrapped products.

Two years ago, a TechNet Professional subscription entitled you to 10 product keys for every version of Windows and every version of Office. In September 2010, citing concerns over piracy, Microsoft cut those allotments to five keys.

Now, according to an announcement at the TechNet Subscriptions home page, the number of product keys has just been slashed again:

Beginning in mid-March 2012, subscribers to TechNet Subscriptions (excluding TechNet Standard which are entitled to 2 keys per product) may access a maximum allocation of three (3) product keys for Microsoft Office and Windows Client products in connection with their subscription. The allotted keys may only be used for software evaluation purposes. Once the maximum keys have been activated, no more keys will be made available. Additional product keys may be acquired through the purchase of an additional subscription.

In addition to that restriction, Microsoft has also imposed restrictions on the number of keys that can be claimed on any given day. As another support page notes, a TechNet Professional (Retail) subscriber can claim 44 keys in a 24-hour period.

Reaching your limit means that you have claimed the maximum number of keys allowed for your program benefit level within a 24 hour period. Every 24 hours you may claim another set of keys, up to your program levels maximum.

The same document includes an explanation of sorts for the sudden spate of changes:

Why has Microsoft limited my access to product keys?

We are acting to protect the value of your subscription. If we did not act to prevent abuse of subscriptions we would eventually have to either limit the products available in a subscription or raise the price of your subscription. We believe that this is the best compromise to continue to deliver the highest value to you while limiting abuse at the same time

.

Over the past few years, I have encountered countless examples of unauthorized resellers hawking Windows and Office product keys on legit-looking websites. It was a lucrative business for scammers, whose $349 got them 10 licenses for Windows 7 Home Premium and Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. It was practically a license to print money, as long as their customers activated the resold product keys before Microsoft cut them off.

Even at five keys per product, the economics made it worth trying.

The question now is whether the newly reduced allotment of product keys will actually reduce piracy or simply annoy TechNet subscribers.

Source: ZDNet

[Intersect]

not realy happy about this, but they have done this becasue of the abuse to the system, bizspark was abused like a dogs favriate stuffed duck.

but if you are using technet properly you dont realy need to activate 10 keys in a testing enviroment and once testing is done your supsed to remove the

software. but people dont those who say the do are likely to be telling lies about it.

[still1]

This is bad... I claimed all 10 keys for all products before they slashed it to 5...

Its not a big issue with Windows Client and servers OS because you can activate it multiple times.

The problem is with Office where you can activate only a limited time with a key and after that they expire.

[primexx]

This is bad... I claimed all 10 keys for all products before they slashed it to 5...

Its not a big issue with Windows Client and servers OS because you can activate it multiple times.

The problem is with Office where you can activate only a limited time with a key and after that they expire.

really? how many times? I haven't ran into problems with office activations yet

[still1]

really? how many times? I haven't ran into problems with office activations yet

10 activation per key... if you install and activate Office in a PC its activation no 1. If you uninstall, then install and activate again

its activation no 2 but that's not the case with Windows OS. You can format and install any no of times on a PC its activation no 1 but if you install on 2nd pc its activation no 2.

For office after 10 activation the key will expire and you have to go with the next key

[+Warwagon MVC]

Well I guess i'll be buying Windows 8 this year instead of a technet subscription. Just before my technet subscription ran out I logged on and copied 10 keys from every product.

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

For office after 10 activation the key will expire and you have to go with the next key

Online activations yes, but not phone activations. Have and usi a 2007 Technet Office for years, have done the activations over 10 times since original install, not a single problem.

And the activation counter resets after a while

[still1]

Online activations yes, but not phone activations. Have and usi a 2007 Technet Office for years, have done the activations over 10 times since original install, not a single problem.

And the activation counter resets after a while

didnt know phone activation had no limitation but its a pain to do it...

[Hell-In-A-Handbasket]

didnt know phone activation had no limitation but its a pain to do it...

Agreed, it is a pain, and I dislike it. Luckly it has gotten better over the years.

[Southern Patriot]

Won't affect me as I only have Technet Standard, but good to know. I had been thinking of upgrading to Professional, but not really much point in that now (at least for my needs).

[remixedcat]

What about hypervisors??? Someone may need more than 40 keys to test in one day. This includes 40vms + testing ms office+ sps or other stuff at the same time for a VDI setup right?

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

This is bad... I claimed all 10 keys for all products before they slashed it to 5...

I did the same thing, then just let my technet expire...one, because I couldn't afford it any more, and two, a test environment sometimes consists of more machines than they keys they're giving away.....and I personally don't appreciate being treated like a pirate, because with all of the NDA's I've agreed to on Microsoft's terms, I've never once leaked not one single bit of anything, whether it be beta or otherwise, to the public....I've not even talked about it to my family.

[jakem1]

I hope they don't plan to do anything similar to MSDN.

[Argi]

It's no secret that most people bought a subscription for a single year to get keys. This sounds quite reasonable to me and, unless you're willing to pony up considerably more for MSDN, you can't really complain as you're getting quite a lot of software for evaluation purposes at that price.

[ITFiend]

What about hypervisors??? Someone may need more than 40 keys to test in one day. This includes 40vms + testing ms office+ sps or other stuff at the same time for a VDI setup right?

I believe that activating Office and Windows under the same physical machine under a hypervisor will consume only 1 activation, and then following activations will reuse that activation rather than wasting a new activation slot. It may not be true if you change processor architectures on the hypervisor though (I?ve never bothered checking that, and even then it may depend on which hypervisor your using).

If not, well, you can sysprep without resetting activation so long as you set it that way in your configuration file and then clone. That?s how I do it, and I almost never activate a virtualized OSE more than once in a year period.

[HawkMan]

This is bad... I claimed all 10 keys for all products before they slashed it to 5...

Its not a big issue with Windows Client and servers OS because you can activate it multiple times.

The problem is with Office where you can activate only a limited time with a key and after that they expire.

Of course tech net was not meant for you to have cheap access to 10 licenses to install the OS on your one and family computers. It's for testing. For that I don't see any need for more than 3. For family computers and multiple home co putters you're supposed to use full regular licenses or famiy packs.

[remixedcat]

I believe that activating Office and Windows under the same physical machine under a hypervisor will consume only 1 activation, and then following activations will reuse that activation rather than wasting a new activation slot. It may not be true if you change processor architectures on the hypervisor though (I?ve never bothered checking that, and even then it may depend on which hypervisor your using).

I use vmware

[George P Global Moderator]

I think 3 keys should be enough for most people, specially OS wise. I mean, mean personally I have 2 desktops and one netbook so there's 3 and the 2nd desktop I don't really use much so even if that stays how it is it wouldn't matter to me much.

[Elliott]

Annoying. Less and less reasons to have a TechNet subscription.

[HawkMan]

That's because the only reason to have one is to have easy access to licenses do testing environments. Not to run as a daily use OS or production environment.

[remixedcat]

That's because the only reason to have one is to have easy access to licenses do testing environments. Not to run as a daily use OS or production environment.

Note my hypervisor comments above. This is a concern.

[HawkMan]

The comment that says you're using VMware, which is not supported in the same way and MS is under no obligation to support it like this?