Hi, Our company has the Microsoft Direct Access Pack which gives us loads of software including licences. Is it ok to use this software eg Windows 2000 Advanced Server on a collocated box and be ok with the powers that be eg Microsoft ??

Any info would be great !

If you have the pack then you should have the license that came with it. Most if not all Microsoft packs like this disallow the use of the software for commercial gain. It is only ment for software development or training.

Thats what I thought. On the terms and conditions (http://www.microsoft.com/uk/partner/terms_conditions.htm) page it says

Your use of the Software is restricted to your internal business use.

You may use the Software for your own evaluation and testing.

You may use the Software to demonstrate product features to your customers.

Amongst other Microsoft speil, just wondered if anyone had come across this situation before.

Thanks again

I would not take a chance. Microsoft never looses a legal challenge. I've seen local business go under because they used the same copy of Office on 10 machines and got fined thousands of dollars for each.

Aloha

this is for dev purposes only
you can put it on a box and develop with it show people what you developed with it but if you sell an account on a box with this lic you can be in trouble

the only other main cheap lic from MS you can get are NFR copies (Not For Resale)
these are usually pretty cheap but you have to work for MS or know somebody on occasion they used to sell them on the direct access website as a bonus
usually around 10-20% of price I was going to get exchange server for $100 wish I picked it up for that now was a 10 lic seat .

These are Not For Resale versions, so I could run a collocated box for a website, I just couldn't sell hosting ?

Aloha
well I would say if you sell a product or service to someone other than yourself
if you make any $ gains
they will say no you can not
you can colo the box but not have anything on it but dev stuff and the parent OS lic would have to be a normal license because it would be showing what you can do which in turn is trying to get $$

they kinda get ya in a catch

now I guess if you put your DA lic OS on a server and were playing with it and not trying to sell your dev skills than maybe but if MS catches ya ya will have to pay em or they will bust ya or both
so to me it would not be worth it

you could show we can do this for you using MS product but the win2k server you would have to use would have to be a reg license you could not use your DA lic for that website ??
does that make sense ?

but I could be wrong ;)
dont think so but I would email em about what ya want to do