MSDNAA

What is MSDNAA?

The Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) is an agreement between Microsoft and an alliance of schools and colleges around the world. The School of Computing and IT (SCIT) at the University of Wolverhampton (UoW) belongs to this alliance. MSDNAA allows students to download, install and use selected Microsoft products.

How is this possible?

The End User Licence Agreement (EULA) for MSDNAA is very specific. Amongst the terms and conditions of the EULA are the following:

• Only current students of SCIT at UoW are eligible to access this software
• Only for the period that they are currently studying students
• The software can only be used for personal academic purposes

How does it work?

Firstly, users must read and agree to the SCIT "Terms and Conditions" of usage, and to the Microsoft EULA. Following this, registration takes place when a student is validated as being on a SCIT owned award, currently studying. Registration details are then passed to the e-academy's License Management System (ELMS) who issue accounts for registered users. Then users can access the ELMS site to begin accessing software. So,

• Register on this website
• Details passed to ELMS
• ELMS send account details to University eMail address

How do students get copies of the software?

Amongst the services provided by ELMS, ELMS acts as a licence manager issuing product licence keys (activation codes) for Microsoft software. A student can order a product licence key for a software title, free of charge. ELMS also provide links to the software titles for download. Once downloaded, the title can be installed with the licence keys provided.

• Login to ELMS
• Order Product
• Receive Key
• Download Product
• Install Product with Key

Which Microsoft titles are NOT available?

• MS Office is not available

OpenOffice.org is a freely available office suite that can read/write MS formats, and more.

Or You can use the online version of Office called [Thinkfree]

Which Microsoft titles are available?

The latest list, as at November 2006:

• MS Windows Vista Business edition
• MS Windows XP with SP2
• MS Windows 2000
• MS Windows Server 2003
• MS Visual Studio .NET 2003
• MS Visual Studio .NET 2005
• MS SQL Server
• MS OneNote 2003
• MS Visio 2003
• MS Project 2003
• MSDN Library
• MS Virtual PC

Can I get Vista?

MS Vista will be available to students from January 2007, however the process by which students will get copies of the software is still in discussion. It is the first to be released on DVD as opposed to CD and this might cause a logistical problem. By the time it is launched, the logistics should have been solved.

For all those who do not know what Vista is, It is the latest version of windows . You can find more details on it on Windows Vista

How do I register?

1. Visit MSDNAA Registration

2. Agree to the terms and conditions, paying careful attention to the fact that each students has ONE ATTEMPT ONLY at downloading a product, so requests for additional downloads due to broken connections, lost CDs, viruses, reinstalls, etc. cannot be accommodated.