Customers who are eligible for free Terminal Services Client Access Licenses (TS CALs) have been given extra time to obtain them. The change affects customers who had licenses—through OEM, retail, or volume licensing—for Windows XP before Apr. 24, 2003, the date that Windows Server 2003 was released.

The special TS CALs offer was necessary because of a change in the requirements for using TS CALs. Beginning with Windows Server 2000, Microsoft no longer required a special TS CAL for customers who were using the latest version of the Windows Client, which at the time was Windows 2000. This change reflected a policy of "desktop equivalency," the idea that a Windows 2000 client user should not require an extra CAL to view an equivalent desktop when they accessed Windows 2000 Terminal Services.

As welcome as it was, desktop equivalency was difficult for customers to manage if they had multiple desktop clients, some (e.g., Windows 98) requiring a TS CAL and those with Windows 2000 or Windows XP not requiring one. The policy also had an impact on Windows Server revenue. As a result, when it released Windows Server 2003, Microsoft decided to revert back to requiring TS CALs for all clients.

However, the company elected to provide free "transitional CALs" for TS users who had upgraded to Windows XP: if they could prove ownership of Windows XP licenses before Apr. 24, 2003 they could get a free TS CAL for each Windows XP license. That promotion was intended to expire at the end of 2005, but the company has decided to give customers who were eligible for the promotion until June 30, 2007 to get their transitional CALs. The change in deadline does not change the eligibility requirements: customers must be able to show that they had a license for Windows XP before Apr. 24, 2003 in order to receive the transitional CALs.

The TS CAL rule changes are described in detail in "Windows Server 2003 Gets Per-User Licensing" on page 23 of the Feb. 2003 Update.

Answers to common questions about the TS CAL transition plan are described at www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/tscaltransfaq.mspx.