Category Archives: Uncategorized

Visual Studio Subscription Management Resources

Do you manage the formerly-known-as-MSDN Subscriptions for your organisation? You may know that they’re now known as Visual Studio Subscriptions and there’s change afoot for the management portal.

Find an FAQ detailing what’s happening, as well as administration guides for the current VLSC and MPSA portals here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

EES Licensing Guide (September 2016)

We found an updated (September 2016) Enrollment for Education Solutions Licensing Guide where the main change is an adjustment for the renaming of DreamSpark to Microsoft Imagine.

Find this updated guide here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

Windows Server 2016 Licensing Datasheet

There’s an updated (2017) licensing datasheet for Windows Server 2016. The layout is reworked and information on Storage Server, MultiPoint Server and Hyper-V Server is removed. Find this datasheet in the Core Infrastructure section in http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

February 2017 SPUR

The Services Provider Use Rights (SPUR) document is no longer released monthly – just on an as-needed basis.

There IS a new one for February 2017 which is updated for release management rights in Visual Studio (page 28) and adds Team Member, Sales and Customer Service SALs for Dynamics 365 (page 13).

February 2017 Product Terms and OST Changes

There are VDA per User Add-on SLs added to the February 2017 Product Terms document. These are designed to be added on to VDA Device SLs and follow the same rules as the Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 Add-ons. See pages 38 and 42-43 of this document.

The February 2017 Online Services Terms document adds some clarity around Dynamics 365 licensing. Firstly, external users don’t need an SL if they’re using the Operations service, but if they’re using Dynamics 365 clients to access the other services then they do. And secondly, it’s confirmed that if you’re licensed for Dynamics 365 Business edition then you don’t have the right to install and use Dynamics 365 on-premises server software. See page 3.

Microsoft Hosting and CSP Newsletter

The January 2017 Hosting and Cloud Service Provider Newsletter is out. There’s just one item of licensing interest:

the License Mobility through SA Verification form has been updated so that customers can now email completed forms to Microsoft.

Download the latest version of the form here (http://bit.ly/VLForms) – look for “License Verification” as the document type.

Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/2gbk5iR.

Windows 10 CBB Support

With Windows 10 we saw the introduction of branches controlling how frequently you want to receive feature updates. The Current Branch for Business allows you to defer updates but only two CBB versions are supported at any time so you do have to install the updates at some point. Microsoft announce that the latest CBB build (1607) is available in the VLSC on 26 January, 2017 and thus the grace period for the original CBB build (1507) begins and it will no longer be serviced after May 2017.

Read the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2laW8fu.

Windows 10 and CSP

If you buy a Windows 10 Enterprise E3 or E5 User Subscription Licence through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program then you need Windows 10 Pro Anniversary Edition on your device before the enterprise functionality can be enabled.

In January 2017 Microsoft relaxed the rules for the other devices (up to 4 more) that you might want to use: while they still need the Pro edition you can upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. What’s more, if you stop paying your subscription then ALL devices revert to Windows 10 Pro with perpetual use rights.

Windows 10 Enterprise is also part of Secure Productive Enterprise so these enhancements apply if you’re licensed for SPE E3 or E5 too.

See the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2jOimqv.

Microsoft Hosting and CSP Newsletter

The December 2016 Hosting and Cloud Service Provider Newsletter is out. There’s just one item of licensing interest: the SPLA agreement will be refreshed in February 2017 with two small amendments – there’s a new primary place of business field, and notices sent to Microsoft no longer need to be copied to the legal department.

Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/2gbk5iR.