Microsoft Licensing Primer
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The general idea of the free upgrade is for home users, not business users. We're lucky that business users can even take advantage of this upgrade. Microsoft could have said that this upgrade only applied to Windows 7 Home or Windows 8.1 Home editions. But they didn't, I consider myself lucky.
If you were on XP Pro and wanted to go to Windows 7 Pro, you had to either purchase a new machine with 7 Pro on it, or purchase Upgrade licenses (either FPP or VL). Paying though did allow you to use images instantly - but again... .you were paying.
As others have already mentioned, if you want that quick solution, open your wallet.
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That's all licensing. It is the basics of products. Someone makes a product that you want that you exchange money for. If they come up with more stuff to sell to you, you can pay more for it. No different than an upgrade on your car to get a nicer stereo or whatever. They make those options so that you can decide whether to save money and live with an anaemic stereo or to spend more and pump up the jam.
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@Dashrender said:
If you were on XP Pro and wanted to go to Windows 7 Pro, you had to either purchase a new machine with 7 Pro on it, or purchase Upgrade licenses (either FPP or VL). Paying though did allow you to use images instantly - but again... .you were paying.
That we get free upgrades of any kind is a very new thing and a big deal. Apple does this but only because you are buying their hardware, too. MS does not have that revenue advantage.
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It is really no different than Windows Desktop vs. Windows Server. We pay more for Server but it is just the desktop OS with functionality unlocked. All about paying for the features that you use.
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Many companies charge us extra for network licences from a license server (floating licences) vs a stand alone ones. Some of these are even $1,000-$1,500 more per seat than an normal standalone seat. It's about what they can sell the ease of use at.
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JetBrains charges a big premium for floating licensing too.
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I wonder how long until Windows OS is included in Office 365...
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@brianlittlejohn said:
I wonder how long until Windows OS is included in Office 365...
It is, more or less. Has been for a while. You get InTune, which is technically part of the O365 suite, and select the upper tier and Windows is included.
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Hmmm.... Haven't looked into that before....
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What' the main advantage of inTune? Their AV? The fact that it's the mobile version of WSUS? now included OS upgrades?
Why would someone buy it?
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Very few people do. It's an odd duck of a product. Central, hosted management of AV, OS upgrades, it's really mostly around mobile workforces. If you have AD internal you would not likely go down the InTune path. Most of what it does is built into other things.
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Last thing on DESKTOPS...
OEM is tied to the machine you purchased it on/for. (Since you can also buy OEM licenses from places.) You cannot transfer the license, not can you restore a backup image from OEM Machine A to OEM Machine B.
What about VL, and FPP?
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@BRRABill said:
What about VL,
VL is tied to the license it upgrades. So you....
- Buy an HP dx5150 desktop.
- It has an OEM copy of Vista
- That OEM Vista is tied to that desktop
- You VL upgrade that Vista to Windows 8.1
- That VL is tied to that OEM license
- The transitive property means that the VL is now tied to that hardware by association.
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So in a way, VL is tied to a machine as well.
The only license you can transfer is FPP, right?
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@BRRABill said:
The only license you can transfer is FPP, right?
Correct. And it is priced to make that impractical in all but the rarest of circumstances.
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Someone else can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the point of VL for desktops is you buy the single copy of the highest version you need to image all your systems to.
So if your office is half Windows 8.1 and half Windows 10. You will buy a VL of Windows 10.
Then you will make an image for Windows 10 for the OEM 10 boxes and an image for 8.1 for the OEM 8.1 boxes, because the 8.1 boxes are not licensed for 10. -
@JaredBusch said:
Someone else can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the point of VL for desktops is you buy the single copy of the highest version you need to image all your systems to.
So if your office is half Windows 8.1 and half Windows 10. You will buy a VL of Windows 10.
Then you will make an image for Windows 10 for the OEM 10 boxes and an image for 8.1 for the OEM 8.1 boxes, because the 8.1 boxes are not licensed for 10.That's how I understand it to... Though to Scott's point... The single VL you purchase you technically have to assign to a single machine in your environment, but that doesn't effect the use of imagining rights you know have for every machine in your environment.
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
Someone else can correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that the point of VL for desktops is you buy the single copy of the highest version you need to image all your systems to.
So if your office is half Windows 8.1 and half Windows 10. You will buy a VL of Windows 10.
Then you will make an image for Windows 10 for the OEM 10 boxes and an image for 8.1 for the OEM 8.1 boxes, because the 8.1 boxes are not licensed for 10.That's how I understand it to... Though to Scott's point... The single VL you purchase you technically have to assign to a single machine in your environment, but that doesn't effect the use of imagining rights you know have for every machine in your environment.
That all matches my understanding.
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Onto SERVERS!
SERVER licenses can be purchased in three ways: OEM, retail, and VL.
OEM server licenses have the same restrictions as desktop licenses in that they are tied to the machine.
QUESTION1: can you backup an OEM server and image it to another OEM server?
