Tag Archives: Windows

Licensing changes for hosted solutions

Microsoft announce some upcoming licensing changes for hosted solutions. These will allow partners to offer more solutions (notably hosted desktop solutions comprised of Windows and Office), and will allow customers more flexibility in where they use their existing licences.

This increased flexibility will come via changes to Software Assurance which will expand to allow customers to use their Windows, Office and Windows Server licences with any Cloud Provider partner on dedicated or multi-tenant hardware.

There’s no word yet on when exactly these changes will be implemented, but in the interim you can read the (very long) blog post here: https://bit.ly/3lkgvqD.

Power Apps Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (March 2021) Power Apps Licensing Guide.

The main change is the inclusion of rights to Power Automate within Windows licences via the Power Automate Desktop product, and there’s a useful table added on page 16 which gives a summary of the Power Automate use rights included in different licences.

Find out more about the Power Automate Desktop product on our blog here: http://bit.ly/30uS0Nc, and download the latest Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/3ekVWbE.

Windows Virtual Desktop on Azure

Microsoft announce Windows Virtual Desktop, which will allow customers to run a full Windows 10 desktop that’s optimised for Office 365 ProPlus, delivered on Azure. Access to Windows Virtual Desktop will be included in the following User SLs: Microsoft 365 E3, E5 or F1, and Windows 10 E3 or E5, with the only additional costs being storage and compute consumption from the virtual machines themselves.

The service will be in preview soon – use this page to stay up to date: http://bit.ly/2zQJD22, and find the original announcement here: http://bit.ly/2xYfHzo.

Windows 7 Extended Security Updates

Microsoft announce that Extended Security Updates will be available for Windows 7, for which extended support ends on 14 January, 2020. The Windows 7 ESU will be sold on a per-device basis and will be available to customers who have purchased Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise through a Volume Licensing program. The price of the Windows 7 ESU will increase each year, but there will be discounts available for customers with active SA or Windows 10 Enterprise/Education subscriptions. Find the announcement towards the end of this page: http://bit.ly/2N3kqty.

Managing Windows 10 CSP Subscriptions

If you have responsibility for deploying and managing Windows 10 Subscriptions in CSP then there are three interesting documents that you might find useful: An Introduction to Windows 10 Subscriptions in CSP; The Role of Azure AD in Windows 10 Cloud Subscriptions; and Windows 10 Upgrade Benefits for CSP Customers.

Find all of these documents with their overviews here: http://bit.ly/2P1h6ML.