David said:
Are you certain that a client with no Office programs installed
could run Office programs on a WTS? I thought you had to have *some*
office programs installed for it to work, though the license server
didn't enforce the requirement for the exact application/version you
were running on the Terminal Server. Thus, a user with Office Small
Business installed on the client PC could run an Access app on the
Terminal Server.
Our company holds volume licensing for just about anything from Microsoft
that's not server software. We have PCs in our factories (users that don't
have Email accounts) where there is pretty much nothing but Windows
installed. These PCs can still run my Access apps over TS along with the
Outlook functionality that the app invokes.
Perhaps it is our volume licensing that allows this to work. My impression
was that except for TS CALS and Citrix licenses that all other license
requirements for running programs over TS are on the honor system. That
they are legally required, but that nothing technical enforces those
requirements. Perhaps the license monitoring is more sophisticated that I
thought though.
I think you're applying the "Enterprise" requirement to the wrong
piece of software -- it is a *Windows Terminal Server* requirement,
not an Office requirement.
Now that is entirely plausible. Until this article I was recalling I had
never even heard of an Enterprise version of Office so I might have gotten
the term applied to the wrong piece. That being said I have never heard of
an Enterprise version of a server OS from Microsoft either. I thought there
was simply "Small Business Edition" and "regular". Perhaps the Office 2007
requirement is simply that you can't use SBE?
Well, enough with this speculation. I just found the document outlining
licensing requirements for TS on Windows Server 2003 at this link...
http://download.microsoft.com/downl...ion_with_windows_server_terminal_services.doc.
Here is the relevant section...
-----------------------------------------------
Use of Microsoft desktop applications in a Terminal Services environment
requires that the license acquired for the desktops from which the desktop
application is remotely accessed matches the suite/edition, components,
language, and version of the copy of the application being accessed. For
example:
Product (or suite): Microsoft Office Standard 2007 and Microsoft Office
Professional Plus 2007 are different products (or suites). A desktop
licensed for Office Standard 2007 may not remotely access and use Office
Professional Plus 2007.
Components: A license for a suite (e.g., a Microsoft Office system suite)
for the accessing desktop must have exactly the same components as the copy
of the Microsoft Office suite being remotely accessed.
Language: The English/multilanguage version of the Microsoft Office suite
may not be accessed remotely from a desktop, which is licensed for a single
language version of the Microsoft Office suite. Likewise, remote access to a
licensed copy of Microsoft Office Multi-Language Pack 2007 requires the
accessing desktop be licensed for the Office Multi-Language Pack 2007.
Version: Microsoft Office 2003 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system are
different versions. You may not remotely access the 2007 Microsoft Office
system from a desktop that is licensed for Microsoft Office 2003.
With the release of the 2007 Microsoft Office system, generally only
licenses obtained through the Microsoft Volume Licensing Program can be
deployed to a network server for remote access. Most retail (full packaged
product) and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) licenses for products
released in the 2007 release timeframe do not permit network use.
-----------------------------------------------
So by "Enterprise" what they really mean is that Office 2007 only works over
TS with a volume license key rather than standard or OEM licenses. It is
still not clear to me that the licensing requirements of older Office
versions are legal versus technical, but I did find a discussion on MSDN
forums where the poster could not get Office 2007 to work over TS until he
switched to a volume license so in the case of 2007 the requirement appears
to be a technical one.
The document does not specifically address the runtime. Any of the
following are easy to believe...
1) Runtime works since it has no license requirements.
2) Runtime doesn't work because of volume license requirements and this is
intentionally how MS wants it to behave. IOW they no longer want people
using the runtime in a TS environment.
3) Runtime doesn't work because of volume license requirements and this is
NOT what MS actually intended. They simply forgot to consider the
ramifications to the runtime when they changed the licensing requirements.
I find all three of those believable, but somewhat less so for number 1
until we hear from at least one person who reports using the runtime over TS
successfully (and where they do not have volume licensing in place).
