MSDN Subscription - too many disks?

If you've been frustrated by the sheer number of DVD's or CD's in your MSDN Subscrition, I've got some interesting news for you.  We are taking some products out.

As an outcome of the agreement between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft, products containing the Microsoft Virtual Machine (MSJVM), including Visual Studio® 6.0 and Windows® 2000, will cease to be available on MSDN Subscriber Downloads from late December 2005. Existing users of MSJVM are encouraged to make any required downloads prior to their removal. Support for existing users will extend until December 31st 2007. Further information is available at https://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/java/.

The list of products that will be removed from MSDN subscriptions is:

• Application Center 2000
• BizTalk Server 2000
• Commerce Server 2000
• Commerce Server 2000
• Resource Kit Embedded Visual Tools 3.0 (2002 Edition)
• Exchange Server 5.5 & 2000
• ISA Server 2000
• MS Plus! 98
• FrontPage 2000
• Server Extensions Handheld PC 2000 SDK
• Site Server 3
• Small Business Server 2000
• SNA Server 4.0
• Service Pack 3 & Service Pack 4
• System Management Server 2
• Visual C++ (Alpha Systems)
• Visual FoxPro 6.0
• Visual SourceSafe 6.0c & 6.0d
• Visual Studio 6.0
• Windows CE Toolkit for Visual C++ 6.0
• Windows CE SDKs & DDKs
• Infrared Communications for Windows 95 DDK
• DCOM for Windows 95 v1.1
• Windows 98
• Windows 98 DDK
• Windows 2000
• Windows 2000 DDK
• Windows ME
• Windows NT 4.0
• Windows NT 4.0 DDK
• System Stress for Windows NT 4.0 & Windows 2000

These products will be removed both from the pressed media you receive each month AND from MSDN Subscriber Downloads from today (December 16).

More information can be found at https://blogs.msdn.com/msdnsubscriptions/archive/2005/11/18/494716.aspx and at https://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/java/

Comments

• Anonymous
  December 15, 2005
  As an MSDN subscriber, it makes me a little nervous that Visual Studio 6.0 is getting removed. There are lots of applications out there built with that version, and I feel there is a strong possibility of needing to load that up again some time.
  
  Also, we have lots of customers (corporate environment) that are still using Windows 2000. Therefore, we need to maintain that as a testing platform. I think removal of that may also be a little premature.
• Anonymous
  December 15, 2005
  While we are removing the media, you can continue to use the softwae... all products are supplied with perpetual use licenses, except subscriptions purchased through EAS/OSL/OVS*, and subscriptions as a benefit of Certified Partner/ISV Empower membership.
  
  However, "We are not obliged to make media available for products that have been withdrawn from availability or cease to be supported. There are cases whereby legal rulings, such as the agreement with Sun, preclude us from making products available. We typically maintain media availability of products in Volume Licensing to version n-1"
• Anonymous
  December 15, 2005
  'MS Plus! 98'
  
  nooooooooooooooooo!
• Anonymous
  December 15, 2005
  That means that we'll need to keep around MORE disks.. the new MSDN disks without these products AND the old MSDN disks WITH these products...
• Anonymous
  December 15, 2005
  >> If you've been frustrated by the sheer number of DVD's or CD's in your MSDN Subscrition
  
  Boy, switching to DVD subscription has certainly made this part of MSDN easier for me!
  
  The only people who will be really affected are those who start an MSDN subscription from Jan onwards.
  
  Kirk
• Anonymous
  December 15, 2005
  The comment has been removed