'In recent years, we have seen a usage shift from paid to free evaluation experiences and resources. It was a great win-win, until I got an email that said, among other things: $350 ($250 per year to renew) for a TechNet subscription seemed like a fair trade-off: access to all the software I could possibly want and no need to reinstall trialware. There's a free 180-day trial available (which you can extend to 240 days) but still the thought of having to rebuild all my VMs every 8 months sounds like a lot of wasted time that I could better spend blogging or writing presentations. I'd gladly pay $50 or $100 for a development/testing license of Windows Server, but there is no such offering. Unfortunately the Windows Server team never got that memo. Back in school I didn't have the funds to buy SQL Server 2000 or Windows Server 2000, but I have a VM running them now thanks to TechNet.Īs a DBA, I shouldn't even need TechNet because the SQL Server team is kind enough to release a reasonably-priced developer edition for development, testing, and demonstration environments. All the virtual machines I use for my lab environment run software I've obtained through TechNet.

TechNet is also a source for current software (again, for development and evaluation purposes). (Though sadly I don't see Microsoft Bob available for download.) Windows 3.1, FrontPage, Access 2003, it's all there. Need to create a test environment with older versions of software? TechNet has you covered. Most notably it has a subscription service that provides copies of software for development and evaluation purposes.

If you're not familiar with TechNet, it's a program Microsoft offers that contains 'Resources and Tools for IT Professionals'. This is very disappointing and will profoundly affect myself and many others. Last week Microsoft announced that they will be retiring their TechNet Subscriptions service.

Msdn operating systems subscription