What versions of products are available for download through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC)?

Here is a good question that came in this morning regarding the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC):

“If I have a Microsoft Volume Licensing agreement for a Microsoft product, what versions of that product are available for download through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center?”

Thanks for asking! Here is the answer to the question:

The Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center makes available the N and N-1 versions of products for download. Ok, what does THAT mean??? “N” refers to the most current version of a product. So the “N” version of Office for Windows is Office 2010. With that being said, that makes the “N-1” version the version just prior to the current version (Office 2007 would be the “N-1” version of Office for Windows). You can find all of these products available in the “Licensed Downloads” section of the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center.

Now, there are a few exceptions to this where the N-2 version (two versions prior to the current version) of a product may still be available through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center. These exceptions are limited and are only for certain products that have historically had high demand (such as Office 2003, Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, and Windows XP Professional Upgrade). You can find these products at the bottom of the “Licensed Downloads” section of the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center under a section called “Archived Products.”

Again, generally the N-2 versions of products are not available through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center, so the good rule of thumb when wondering what is available is to think about the N (current) version and N-1 (one version prior to current) version of the Microsoft product.

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Eric Ligman – Follow me on TWITTER, LinkedIn, and RSS and see “What I’m thinking”
Global Partner Experience Lead
Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

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