Help with Windows Licensing?

Hello all,

I know Windows Licensing is a big issue and something that needs to be handled very carefully and correctly to ensure your company does not wear the wrath of Microsoft.

That being said i have been charged with the daunting taks of getting our licensing up to scratch and it is something i do not have much knowledge in, so i thought i would just ask a few questions here to get me started.

We run terminal servers on Windows 2003 and are licensed for the 80 staff we have working here. We also run office on our terminal serves to. When i was studyng i read something about an admin tool that monitors windows and office licenses on terminal servers and keeps track of how many licenses you have versus how many people you have logged in.

I would really like to know more about this, to make sure our terminals erver licensing is up to date.

The other issue i am having is making sure all our "dumb" terminals are up to date with there licesning. We run all sorts of windows operating systems from 98 to xp (some machines need some locally ran programs). Almost all these machines have a Windows certificate of authenticity stciker attatched to them with there own product key. I was wondering the actual relevance of these stcikers and if they are enough for computers being used as dumb terminals. Im just a little worried that they are no more than a meaningless sticker being attatched to the side of the machine.

All or machines are refurbs and are now coming with this certificate of authenticity, what i guess i really want to know is, is this enough, and also if someone could point me in the right direction to perhaps a comprehensive guide to getting your company licensed that would be great.

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Comments

blargoe

If you could find out what company you guys bought your Windows software, they probably have records to back up what your company owns.

Plantwiz

First, Congrats on the fun project

If you get stuck you can work with MS they should be helpful to get you current. However, I'll commment what I know assuming I'm following you

Each PC needs it's own COA sticker or (volume or Bus 6.0 type License) if your running Windows.

Then you'll need a Server License with the corresponding number of user/device CALs to connect to the server.

If your server is W2K3 then you'll need TS CALs for your clients (about $80 each)

Plantwiz

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/823313/en-us

http://www.softwarespectrum.com/microsoft/Advisor/lic_overview.asp?bucketNum=4

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/programs/manage.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824196

Might look at these.

albanga

Thanks for your help, those articles will make for some interesting readng. That all seems pretty good then. I want to get the local computers all licensed first since most of them are already done, then i will tackle the terminal servers.

Im just not convinced on these stcikers as im not too sure what they are. If you go to http://img.microsoft.com/romania/antipiraterie/_images/newcoaXP.gif

that is an example of what they look like, the only differnce is that they are not OEM, instead they are either blank or have the companies name of the system. e.g - IBM CORPORATION

Does this look right to you. I just want to tread failry lightly on this issue and take all the right precautions.

RussS

I have been in the unenviable position of having to audit several of our clients to ensure they were up to date prior to an audit from Microsoft.

Microsoft does have a free audit tool that will help make this pretty easy, but there is also one you can purchase that does most other software - it is called System Audit Manager.

Plantwiz

albanga wrote:

Thanks for your help, those articles will make for some interesting readng. That all seems pretty good then. I want to get the local computers all licensed first since most of them are already done, then i will tackle the terminal servers.

Im just not convinced on these stcikers as im not too sure what they are. If you go to http://img.microsoft.com/romania/antipiraterie/_images/newcoaXP.gif

that is an example of what they look like, the only differnce is that they are not OEM, instead they are either blank or have the companies name of the system. e.g - IBM CORPORATION

Does this look right to you. I just want to tread failry lightly on this issue and take all the right precautions.

For that you may wish to contact MS.

I've only seen the OEM (since we build our own workstations for our clients) FPP for end users who we need to get legit and Dell COA's.

It could be, but honestly I haven't seen it with a corporation name on it...Perhaps it is issued for Volume License OS??