Microsoft now licensing Windows by the user, across multiple devices

Re: does this fix anything?

And that's exactly what Microsoft doesn't want.

If you have to pay by year, they guarantee their finances for decades to come.

If you can not bother to go to Windows 8 and not pay them any extra, then you won't.

Re: does this fix anything?

I think perhaps it does fix something - licence Windows per user and this gets rid of the problem we have of VDI being tied to a device - we don't want to licence students for each of their devices to access a VDI solution.

Having said that, it's unclear whether this is concurrent users or named users - the former would be equivalent to RDS (terminal services) licencing and would be the ideal for any VDI solution. Bet it's going to be the later and then we'd need to licence 15000 students to be able to access 1 of 200 VDI sessions!

BUT what's this diagonal screen size thing? A Tablet whatever the size of screen is either going to with Windows installed or it's not (and probably licenced) - can't see MS providing a free install to enable Windows on a Nexus or iPad???????

Licencing departments come up with the most stupid convoluted unnecessary restrictions. What's wrong with one Windows licence per system (physical or virtual) running Windows???????

Re: does this fix anything?

@Fuzz It's a half-assed fix. VDI licensing has been my number one issue with Microsoft for 6 years. I will examine this in great detail and put together an article. It's not what we wanted or needed. But it's a lot better than what we had.

Microsoft have, however, acknowledged that there is a problem. That's flabbergasting. They had fought tooth and nail against admitting there was an issue here since Vista came out.

...could we finally be making a dent?

Re: Unfuzzy feeling

Unfuzzy - I think you mean shaven.

Re: Unfuzzy feeling

"I can only presume that this will absolutely force the user use to have a "MS Live account""

Nope - that's not even a requirement for Microsoft's online enterprise services - you can have single sign-on and use a corporate ID.

Re: Seems to me that ...

"... *nix has been doing this (and more!) for ~30 years."

Providing bastard hard to work with licensing models you mean? Yes, true. Sun / Oracle, HP and IBM all spring to mind...

Re: Could this be a first?

The 10.1 limit is a silly thing.

does this limit mean that if I (somehow) connect up a 27in display(for example) to the device that windows would suddenly become unlicensed and refuse to do anthing until MS got paid for another new license?

Trust good old MS to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Re: It's 2014..

You didn't buy* Operating Systems in the '90s either. It has always been licencing.

* Not unless you were someone like Bill Gates. Even then it was a bit of a one-off.

Re: It's 2014..

Recently bought a Compulabs Fit-PC. Nice to be given the option to either buy an OS to be installed on it or not (Not, they were only offering MS 7,8 or Mint Linux).

Haven't seen that option since 1991 when I had the option to buy MS-DOS or DR-DOS with a 486.

it is customers you want

but but but... wait, if we allow a customer to use different copies of Windows from different devices all with the same license, think of all the different opportunities for additional revenue we can't afford to miss!!!!

(voice from MS licensing department)

The final outcome of all this: in the future Windows machines will have a built in credit card reader (or coin slot) You'll swipe your card or insert a few coins and will get x hours of Windows. All your data will be stored in the MS cloud so if you want to access it you'll have to pay MS for the privilege.