Licensing Changes for Windows Enterprise Edition

[This report was edited after initial publication. See notes in italics below.]

On Mar. 1, 2014, the way customers license the use of Windows Enterprise edition changes. Windows Enterprise offers all the features of Windows Pro and adds security, management, and additional capabilities mainly of interest to large organizations. Rather than being a benefit of Software Assurance (SA) on a Windows Pro license, Enterprise edition will be licensed on its own through a new Windows Enterprise Upgrade license. Enterprise Agreement (EA) customers will need to accommodate some superficial changes and will not be materially affected, but a small number of Select Plus, Select, and Open customers might be.

Old Rules

Under the old rules, Windows Enterprise edition can’t be purchased directly from Microsoft or a PC hardware manufacturer. Instead, the only way to acquire rights to install and use Windows Enterprise edition as a PC’s physical OS is to attach SA to a device’s existing Windows Pro edition license. A term of SA typically lasts between two and three years, and along with myriad other benefits, SA attached to a perpetual Windows Pro license provides a customer with perpetual rights to use Windows Enterprise on the licensed device. Customers maintain this right if they subsequently let SA coverage lapse, even if they have not yet installed Windows Enterprise on the device. However, if SA is not maintained, a customer does not have rights to any subsequent versions of Windows Enterprise edition released after SA expiration. Such a customer also loses the ability to reassign Windows Enterprise to a replacement device should the customer later want or need to swap out one of the original PCs in place at the time of SA expiration.