[EM]

How would one go about legally acquiring the corporate version of XP Professional when it comes out? The company I work for is still using NT 4.0 so they will most likely NOT be purchasing it even if I wanted to steal a copy.

Ed

[clutch]

I guess that would depend on what you are looking for out of a "corporate" version. My company has an Open License Agreement with MS through CDW, and we buy productivity software (Office 2000/XP, Project, etc.) using this license number. Upon doing so, you get a new key that will not require activation (since I am using SMS to deploy images of Office, this works out quite well) and work on any CD. The only other version that I can think of is where there is no key required at all, due to an entry in the setupp.ini(right?) file on the CD. This format used to be prevelant in the MSDN distributions, but they seem to be requesting activation now as well.

If you would like to get into an open license agreement, go through a large distributor (like CDW) and they can guide you through the process. You will probably need a minimum of 5 licenses, however, in order to qualify to corporate licensing.