Office 365 Pro Plus and RDS/TS installation with VL PUR
B V A
WHAT:
Many partners are aware by now that the Product Use Rights (PUR) was updated end of January in favor of supporting a RDS or TS deployment of Office, even though the user’s license was a subscription license through Office 365. UPDATE – It is important to understand that a PUR is only for Customer’s in a Volume License Agreement such as EA, Select, or Open.
Updated 09/2013 reflecting additional offerings in Office 365 Open – https://blogs.technet.com/b/uspartner_ts2team/archive/2013/08/22/office-365-open-expanded-lineup-faq.aspx
INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS - Product Use Rights (January 2013) (see note under Additional Terms, page 82)
1. Each user to whom you assign a User SL may activate the software for local or remote use on up to five concurrent OSEs.
2. The Licensed User may also use the software activated by another user under a different User SL.
3. Each user may also use one of the five activations on a network server with the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role enabled.
4. You may allow other users to remotely access the software solely to provide support services.
HOW:
In trying to provide clarity on the HOW you accomplish this; I would like to offer this information that was gathered from a recent discussion forum:
A Volume Activation Office package is required to install on a Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer server with the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role enabled. All Office 365 ProPlus packages use retail activation and because of that, they do not install on a server with the RDS role enabled or function if installed first on the server then the RDS role is enabled after the Office install. Office setup will detect the RDS role at install time and the apps will also detect the RDS role when launched post installation.
In order to install Office Pro Plus 2013 in the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) mode, you must have a volume licensing agreement. Remember that this one license has to be part of the 5 minimum licenses in order to start a volume licensing agreement. You will need RDS CAL’s for each user, so my advice would be to attach the 1 copy of Office Pro Plus 2013 to your order for the RDS CAL’s and Office 365.
Note that installing Office 365 ProPlus on a virtual machine (client or server without an RDS role enabled) is now permitted as well according to the updated PUR. The virtual machine - as with a physical machine install - would be allocated to a primary user, meet Office 365 ProPlus system requirements and be able to connect to the Internet-based Office Licensing Service at least once every 30 days. In other words, we do not distinguish between a physical and virtual machine, as long as all requirements are met.
For Office 365 ProPlus standalone, Office 365 Midsize, and E3/E4,* users may use one of their 5 allocated installations via RDS with the Volume License edition of Office Professional Plus 2013. The organization will still need to procure 1 copy, appropriate key and necessary RDS licenses via the Volume Licensing. The exception only grants the use rights of Office Professional Plus 2013 via RDS to users with an Office 365 ProPlus license.
These are updates from the licensing terms prior to January 2013 for Office Professional Plus in Office 365, which did not allow for any form of virtualization to be used with Office desktop apps.
For more information check out this thread - https://community.office365.com/en-us/forums/156/t/121307.aspx?PageIndex=2
WHY:
Many partners have requested this ability as an option in how they choose to deploy Office for their customers. This has been a very hot topic since the announcement of the PUR this past January. Hopefully this will add clarity to the point that YES you can do RDS/TS implementations, even though the customer is purchasing their Office through Office 365 Subscriptions, however a PUR is only for customers in a VL agreement.
Additional Information:
Great Resource - https://download.microsoft.com/download/3/D/4/3D42BDC2-6725-4B29-B75A-A5B04179958B/Licensing_Microsoft_Office_Professional_Plus_for_Office_365.pdf
One key point is that it requires Office 365 ProPlus, which is available as a stand alone, or through some of the service offerings such as Office 365 Midsize, as well as, the E3 and E4 plans*. Please note that the Office 365 Small Business Premium offering is not eligible.
From the FAQ: What’s the different between Office 365 Small Business Premium and Office 365 Midsize Business?
Office 365 Small Business Premium is designed for businesses with 10 or fewer users without IT personnel. It provides a subscription version of the Office client as well as Exchange business email, and collaboration through SharePoint. It also provides IM/presence and meetings through Lync.
Office 365 Midsize Business is designed for companies with between 11 and 250 users. It provides the features of Small Business Premium as well as improved phone support, Active Directory and a more advanced IT admin console. It also includes a full version of Office 365 ProPlus, our best version of the Office client.
The applications provided as part of the Office client in Small Business Premium SKU are the same as those in the Midsize Business SKU. The applications included in both SKUs are Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, Publisher, Infopath, & SkyDrive Pro. However, there are some of features available in Midsize Business SKU that are not available in the Small Business Premium SKU. For example, the Small Business Premium version does not include features like PowerPivot, PowerView, Monacle, Prodiance, Terminal Services, Telemetry monitoring and a few other smaller items.
Small Business Premium Subscriptions have a technical cap of 25 users. Midsize Business Subscriptions have a technical cap of 300 users. These user caps are designed to ensure a positive customer experience based on the SKU design.
* RDS Use Rights are only included with Office 365 purchased via a VL Agreement such as Open. We are currently working on a solution that would be available to customers who are not purchasing Office 365 through a VL Agreement –
Comments
Anonymous
March 22, 2013
HUH??? Still makes little to no sense.Anonymous
March 22, 2013
Hey Bryan, thanks for your what/how/why write-up, it really helps a lot to have the technical (how) tied neatly with the license/right (what) - I get huge value from your team blog (as I am a partner and an enterprise and a hoster)Anonymous
March 30, 2013
I'm with Dan. This still doesn't answer the question. So let's say they have 50 users and each user has a E3 subscription. They want to use one of the 5 activation's in a RDS environment. So they buy 50 RDS CALs and 1 Office 2013 Professional Plus license. So does this suffice to allow those 50 users to use the Office license since it was installed via a VL key?Anonymous
April 03, 2013
Breakingcustom - YES your example would be correctAnonymous
April 03, 2013
Dan - In order for a customer to Install the Volume Licensing version of Office, they need to purchase it. Because they have the quantity of users being granted through their Office 365 Subscription as a USE RIGHT - they only need to purchase 1 VL copy of Office - See Breakingcustom example.Anonymous
April 10, 2013
Hello Bryan, You say the following "One key point is that it requires Office 365 ProPlus, which is available as a stand alone, or through some of the service offerings such as Office 365 Midsize*, as well as, the E3 and E4 plans. Please note that the Office 365 Small Business Premium offering is not eligible." When i look at the ProductUseRight document it states that you need E3 of E4 for using Office on RDS. You say above that the Midsize will work as well. So can i use Office 365 Midsize in an RDS environment? Is it also possible to use Office 365 on a RDS in combination with SPLA licensing model?Anonymous
April 11, 2013
Bryan, Thx for your answer. Do you know if there is any news on the fact that you first need to buy a Office Plus VL for the correct media and keys? I read somewhere that they are working on that. Is this correct? Final question, do you know if there are any restrictions in using Office 365 in combination with an SPLA datacenter environment? So i host an RDS environment and instead of installing an Exchange 2010 server i configure the customers with Office 365. thx in advantage.Anonymous
April 16, 2013
Looking forward to the next answer. I'm having the same issue.Anonymous
April 18, 2013
JohanVjr Yes Mid-Size is a new offering that came out at END of FeB 2013, AFTER the Use Right announcement in January 2013 - You get FULL Office Pro Plus with Midsize which means YES get the RDS Use Right with Mid-Size in Open - Please note my "*" at end of Blog Post.Anonymous
April 18, 2013
JohanVjr Currently the customer is required to purchase the VL Office Pro Plus, if that changes I will update partners. As far as in a SPLA / RDS environment, as long as the customer is licensed for Office 365, and the 1 VL copy of Office I am not aware of restrictions. - interesting SPLA Post- splalicensing.com/.../office-365-under-splaAnonymous
April 19, 2013
I just signed up for a trial of Office 365 Midsize Business. I signed up at the Office 365 website. Where do I go to purchase through Office 365 Open as mentioned in your asterisk?Anonymous
April 20, 2013
@Shane, The Office 365 Open license is only avaible through your distributor if i'm correct.Anonymous
April 22, 2013
Bryan, we got below message from our distributor. Honestly speaking i'm confused after reading below. Can we or can we not use O365 license model in a SPLA environment. Hope you can help. Kind regards. Message from distributor: We have many SPLARs and partners asking about the use of VL licensed Office or O365 on shared platform. Please make sure that all your SPLA partners are informed and understand that VL licensed Office as well as O365 cannot be used on a shared platform. The reason being: we don’t have License Mobility for these products. Products covered by LM is clearly marked in the PUR. The rules for License Mobility is also detailed described in PUR p.101 For O365 the PUR mentions that the customer is allowed to access an instances through RDS. Just to be clear: this RDS instance cannot be on a shared platform (not even on dedicated VM), as the only licenses that can be moved to shared platform are those eligible for License Mobility. You can install O365 on 5 client devices or you can install O365 PP on 4 client devices and Office PP 2013 1 network server with RDS. Note: There is a technical limitation that blocks deploying O365 PowerPoint bits on a network server. RDS does not support O365 PP bits. You can deploy Office 2013 or O365 RDS on a server in a physically dedicated outsourcing scenario. Microsoft confirmed the outsourcing language in the April PUR allows this.Anonymous
April 29, 2013
The one interesting point at this time is that Microsoft states that they don't support Office 365 in an rds environment. So they entitle users to use with rds but they won't support it. Interesting..........Anonymous
May 07, 2013
Micah What us NOT supported is trying to use the Office 365 bits for RDS implementation - If you use the VL bits as described above it is supported. The individual Office licenses needed for each user are granted as an exception for the users that are under a VL Agreement as the PUR states at the beginning, however the PUR is only for VL customers.Anonymous
May 07, 2013
Getting Office 365 - Yes it is through you local distributor - In the US there are 4 - Ingram Micro, Synnex, Tech Data and D&HAnonymous
May 16, 2013
I've done some digging and get how most of this works. What I don't get is, is the One of Five licenses for RDS mean that you can install the VL copy of Office 2013 only on ONE RDS server? I mean, the point in RDS is usually to have more than one server. We're big enough to have two RDS servers, and want to use our Office 2013 rights from 365 here. We don't want to have to buy completely different licenses for Office 2013 just for our RDS environment, making us essentially pay for 2013 twice. Thanks for any clarification.Anonymous
May 31, 2013
What about APP-V in an RDS Environment? App-V 5 is supported for Office 365 with Click to Run but But is Not Supported for VL. RDS Supports VL but not Office365! We could always created or own Package of the VL version of Office 2013 but it is not supported so does that mean we are not even allowed to do that? or does it just mean we would get any support from Microsoft on it?Anonymous
June 08, 2013
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June 10, 2013
Hi Brian I am still confused, especially as different distributors are saying different things... ;-) I do understand the following:
- On the RDS servers, you have to install VL copies of Office 365 Professional Plus
- your users can use a office 365 ProPlus subscription to access (using one of their 5 installations) the RDS server so far so good. however, our distributors tell us that they cannot sell us the Office 365 ProPlus subscription, this would only be possible through microsoft themselves or an MS partner. However these subcriptions would not be Volume Licenses, therefore not eligible for item 2) above. Question a) do the users accessing the RDS server need a license obtained as part of a volume license (e.g. an OPEN)? Question b) If so, who can sell these OPEN Office 365 ProPlus subscriptions? Question c) Are Office 365 ProPlus users/licenses from Microsoft Syndication partners allowed to access an RDS server? Thanks in advance for helping out of this confusion Yves
Anonymous
June 27, 2013
What a mess! I am still arguing with the Volume Licensing team about RDS install rights. Any update on non-VL Office 365 rights to install/run on RDS?Anonymous
July 05, 2013
...still no update? It looks like every topic about O365 (VL/NON-VL) - RDS combination is to this article ;)Anonymous
July 08, 2013
I am also struggling with this. We have Office 2010 using App-V on a shared hosted platform and want to do the same with 2013, but CTR dosent support RDS, and its not supported to stream your own Office 2013 in App-V 5. We seem to be at a loss for offering 2013 to customers (note it is a requirement for all apps in our environment to use App-V).Anonymous
July 09, 2013
Hi. Of 4 partners I've contacted, I've gotten 3 different opinions as to what we can and cannot do! Most of our 80-100 users will connect to Office 365 from physical workstations; no problem. However, 30-40 of our users will be connecting to Office 365 from Xendesktop-based VMs running over VMWare. Problem is, our total users number 80-100, and the minimum required to purcase E3 under a volume license is 250. What the governing policy here? Must we purchase Office 365 under a volume license in order for the E3 Office 2013 licenses to be useable on those Xendesktop VMs? Best, ChrisAnonymous
July 15, 2013
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September 15, 2013
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September 26, 2013
HI, when will be Office365 shared platform ready?Anonymous
December 15, 2013
This is a very common topic I am getting with my education customers and student labs, etc. My colleagueAnonymous
December 15, 2013
This is a very common topic I am getting with my education customers and student labs, etc. My colleagueAnonymous
December 21, 2013
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December 21, 2013
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December 21, 2013
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December 22, 2013
Any update on non-VL Office 365 rights to install/run on RDS?Anonymous
December 22, 2013
Any update on non-VL Office 365 rights to install/run on RDS?Anonymous
December 29, 2013
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December 29, 2013
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December 29, 2013
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December 29, 2013
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December 29, 2013
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December 29, 2013
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December 29, 2013
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January 30, 2014
I find this article confusing and not sure it answers or clarifies the question. It is clear I can use an O365 Pro Plus license (1 of my 5) to access Office pro on a vdi layer. However the problem is that every time you connect to a vdi farm you register one of your 5 user licences so you would quickly run out of your 5 installs per user. The answer I think is that you have to install the normal VL Office Pro bits rather than the click to run Office 365 Pro Plus bits on the VDI layer, which means either buying an additional liicense or getting an exception from Microsoft.Anonymous
May 02, 2014
Hi Bryan - what if the customer has 50 users, 25 using perpetual license of Office 2013 and 25 using Office 365 E3....but where ALL of them also need to access to their local Terminal Server, what product key should the partner use to setup their TS properly...the Office 2013 key or 1 of the 5 device rights of Office 365? Do they need 2 TS or only 1...Anonymous
May 14, 2014
Tim Tetrick I frequently get asked about Office 365 ProPlus running in an RDS (Remote Desktop ServicesAnonymous
July 30, 2014
We are a small business and I am very disappointed to read that companies less than 5 employees are excluded aka Small Business Premium is excluded. My goal is to have all my business info in the cloud. I am using Office 365 and want to step up to have download rights. I dont understand the reason for excluding small business customers? Is there some technical reason or did it just come down to a financial decision?Anonymous
November 18, 2014
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January 27, 2015
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January 27, 2015
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January 27, 2015
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March 12, 2015
Hello,
I have question. I have Server 2008r2 with 15 users that connect to this server via Remote Desktop. One of my user needs Office 365. When I installed Office 365 in the server I recived information that I need Volume Licence Edition of Office. Well. I found: Microsoft - Software Licenses Office 365 Windows Pro Plus Open - Mfg Part# Q7Y-00003 for 123usd, and want to install it from: Install application on Remote Desktop Server. Is that will work ? Do I need something else ?
Thank you
MikeAnonymous
April 13, 2015
Hi,
I am a end-customer. I did not understand all, only it is so complicated. Why do that the marketing guys make it so difficult to use? And only accessible for larger customer. The number of complaints, questions and confusing are larger than the money involved.
J.