Distributing Windows to students

With so many schools signing up for NERCOMP and other site licenses, we have been fielding lots of questions about how to get the goods in student’s grubby little hands.

The is the second post in this vein. Mid August we bloged about Office distribution.

Here’s the official line:

https://www.microsoft.com/education/license/manage/workathome_studentmedia.aspx

Here’s what schools are doing:

1. Student media kits – by far the most popular option for Windows. This is a special retail keyed media that allows 3 installs. Students are granted perpetual rights to the OS when they graduate and enjoy getting something material for all their tech fees. You are not at risk with exposing your Volume License Media or Multiple Activation Keys. There is also less a perception of institutional tech support as most are self installed.

2. Download or hand out Volume License Media and using KMS for activation. Since you can’t give out the MAK, if you want to use VL media, you need to use KMS for activation. The downside is KMS activated machines must check in once every 6 month. Some schools use this for enrolled students and grant a media kit upon graduation.

3. OS Install Service – some colleges and many K12 offer a service – bring in your PC and we will load a modern OS with a obfuscated MAK key. Can raise the support expectations bar for personally owned devices.