Winidows 10 license with multi-tenant hosting rights

Question

I'm trying to make sure that I comply with all of Azure's licensing requirements.

I have created a Virtual Machine. I use this as a demo machine--select clients and prospective clients can log into this machine and try out my software (I am a Visual Studio developer).

When I created the virtual machine it prompted me regarding "Windows 10 license with multi-tenant hosting rights". I admittedly didn't understand exactly what this meant, so I checked the box and continued on creating the virtual machine.

Since then, I have read about Microsoft 365 E5, but I don't need Office, I only need Excel. I couldn't find a Microsoft 365 option that only licenses Windows 10. (I would add an Excel license).

I've tried to research this so I can comply with licensing requirements, but most people start spewing alphabet soup VDI, VDA, and I don't know what those mean. Can you please explain what I need and where I can purchase the appropriate licenses?

Answer 1

Hi @Douglas Hahn ,

As a visual studio subscriber, you can run Windows in Azure for test/Dev/Demonstration as long as you are using one of the Dev/Test offers- either Enterprise Dev/Test offer or for smaller dev teams you can use the Azure Pay-as-you-go offer both of these offers allow the use of Windows 10 Virtual Desktop Service.

However, the Excel piece is slightly more problematic. If you are using this product for anything more than Test/dev/demonstration, then you are out of compliance. See below:

Running the Software on Microsoft Azure Services

1. The Licensed User may run the Software on Microsoft Azure Services during the term of its Visual Studio Subscription.
2. The use of the Software remains subject to the terms and conditions of Customer’s volume licensing agreement and any terms that come with the Software.
3. The Developer Tools License Model Terms apply to the use of the Software and Azure Dev/Test offers, except that the Licensed User may not run Office Professional Plus or System Center Virtual Machine Manager for production use on Microsoft Azure Services.

That being said, if excel is part of your demonstration you are covered for remote access via the 200 anonymous access licenses provided in your subscription for an online demonstration:

Windows Server 2016 Remote Desktop Services
Up to 200 anonymous users at a time may use the Remote Desktop Services feature of the Windows Server software to access online demonstrations of Customer’s programs.

Lastly, Excel is just not sold standalone in online services. M365 E5, it literally has everything but the kitchen sink in it. While M365 E5 includes M365 Apps for enterprise which includes Excel, in this case the product is licensed per user. You may wish to consider an O365 Developer subscription. There is both an M365 E3 subscription and an M365 E5 subscription which includes the O365 ProPlus (aka M365 Apps for enterprise) which has the cloud version of excel. If you see the terms of user for the Developer license here there is no provision for you to use this subscription for anything but Design, develop, and test (no demonstration).

Let me know if you have any follow up questions! I hope your able to get loaded up with Remote Desktop Service and demo your application to your users.