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I don't think the average home user is "supposed" to have a TechNet subscription. I don't have a subscription myself but they're not stopping students/home users from subscribing to TechNet... what you choose to do is up to you, is what I'm saying? The subscription is there for all who want to subscribe, you receive downloadable isos for Vista and Office, etc with a single activation key (I believe) that activates up to 10 different machines. You're supposed to be using all 10 yourself in the same environment though. It's all full version, non-expiring software that will last/activate even after your subscription expires.

Taken from their website:

"The Microsoft TechNet Program delivers comprehensive, no-nonsense technical resources that help IT professionals efficiently evaluate, deploy and support Microsoft solutions."

I think you will be okay with Vista being on MSDNAA before the year is out. It should be out before the end of the year, but I hope it doesn't slip into 2007 (I'm still a student for a few more years though, so it's not a problem).

Haven't had any updates regarding MSDNAA yet though, so I guess December 8 will be the date until more news arrives.

According to the newsgroups:

>According to what has been announced, you will never get Ultimate through

MSDN AA. Announced plans call for the Business Edition only to be available.

Timing appears to be in the early December timeframe.

For additional information, and details of when Vista will be available in

your department, contact your MSDN AA Administrator.

--

All opinions are mine alone!

*****************************************

* Peter van der Goes, Prof. CIT [MVP]

* MSDN AA Administrator

* [email protected]

* www.rose.edu/faculty/pvan/index.htm

:( Dissapointing if true

Business is the upgrade from XP Professional so it makes sense. Home Premium includes the Media Center stuff which businesses/companies don't require (and schools). So Business makes sense. Enterprise would be even better but I don't think so.

I still think Ultimate will be released, along with all the other versions. (Home Basic, Premium, Business).

I emailed Microsoft's MSDN AA email address, and got a reply 2 business days later:

"Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista! We are pleased to announce that Windows Vista Business Edition will be included in your MSDN AA subscription shipment in January 2007, and is expected to be posted on the MSDN Academic Alliance Subscriber Download Site by December 1, 2006."

I replied asking if this version would be upgradeable to Ultimate through the OS for a fee like the retail versions, or if it would locked against that (since as far as i know, the MSDN AA license keys only work once, but an upgraded one would presumably work forever).

I emailed Microsoft's MSDN AA email address, and got a reply 2 business days later:

"Thank you for your interest in Windows Vista! We are pleased to announce that Windows Vista Business Edition will be included in your MSDN AA subscription shipment in January 2007, and is expected to be posted on the MSDN Academic Alliance Subscriber Download Site by December 1, 2006."

I replied asking if this version would be upgradeable to Ultimate through the OS for a fee like the retail versions, or if it would locked against that (since as far as i know, the MSDN AA license keys only work once, but an upgraded one would presumably work forever).

Thanks for looking into that. An anytime upgrade to Ultimate would be great.

Thanks for looking into that. An anytime upgrade to Ultimate would be great.

Well they got back to me the same day this time. Unfortunately, the MSDN AA version is indeed locked out of being upgraded to Ultimate, so it looks like if we want Ultimate, we have to buy it :(

Well they got back to me the same day this time. Unfortunately, the MSDN AA version is indeed locked out of being upgraded to Ultimate, so it looks like if we want Ultimate, we have to buy it :(

You're getting $300 worth of software for free! Quit complaining! As far as I can see only things you'll miss out on is the BitLocker (too slow anyway), media center (lame), and DVD making tools (3rd party software is better). Do you really think the Ultimate extras will be that great?

You're getting $300 worth of software for free! Quit complaining! As far as I can see only things you'll miss out on is the BitLocker (too slow anyway), media center (lame), and DVD making tools (3rd party software is better). Do you really think the Ultimate extras will be that great?

Well there are some other features that are quite important to some people like me (multilingual support as one example) but I'm guessing upgrades to Ultimate will be really cheap if you do it through the university just like they are now.

Not my university, but it looks like it is available now.

"Please note the Business version is the only version that will be

available to us (and you). For information on what the differences

are between the many versions, please consult the Microsoft Vista

site :

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getr...ns/default.mspx

Keys can be obtained from https://status.cse.unsw.edu.au/accinfo/

and, until our webservers are upgraded to Apache 2.0 (probably not

until the new year), the DVD must physically be borrowed from the

Help Desk.

It is likely that the keys released to MSDNAA will work

with any other Vista DVD release, but I can't say for sure.

Help Desk hours are currently 1:00pm to 3:00pm Monday to Friday"

Sweet. :yes:

Not on Elon's site yet. I keep asking them when, they say that they have the beta 2 {lol],

Im sure it will show up sooner or later,

i would like office 2007 to show up also, considering they give every student a copy for free, not just the MSDNAA members.

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