Off Topic-W2K A-OK?

Yahoo Archive
21
We have clients in several states. For the record they have targeted many
more areas. Cleveland, Most of California, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Atlanta, are
ones that I know of off the top of my head. More people have received the
letters than not. Many have mistakenly thrown the letter away and say they
are not going to respond. Believe me it is much easier for you to get legal
if you are not.

I am also aware of at least one company that was fined $100,000.00 which may
force them into bankruptcy. Disgruntled employees are turning in companies
and Microsoft is the spearhead but there are other software companies
involved.



Keith E. Taylor
Vice President
LBSi
Business Systems Consultants (Progress based ERP packages)
216/476-1416 ext 26
keith@...

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Anderson [mailto:tanderson@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 4:39 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?

If you don't respond to the first letter you will get a 2nd nasty gram
with
a stronger request for you to comply.

Failure to respond will eventually end up in an on-site audit.

Either way I'd suggest you get it together .... NOW!


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Goss [mailto:bobg@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 3:34 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


I have just received a letter from Microsoft Canada's Legal department
asking me to provide them with the number of licenses that I have. How
many
are legal and how many are not. What are my plans to (timeframe) for
legalizing all of my licenses. Not sure if I should reply to this
letter,
however am concerned that no response = here's a company that SHOULD be
audited.

Bob Goss
BC Instruments

-----Original Message-----
From: James Martin Jr. [mailto:jmartin@...]
Sent: March 22, 2001 4:24 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


i was kind of wondering too if anyone on the list has ever been audited?


-----Original Message-----
From: De Anna Godfrey [mailto:dgodfrey@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 2:14 PM
To: Vantage
Subject: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


Hi, I guess I am ignorant but how does a software audit work?

Thanks,

De Anna Godfrey
V.P. of Business Operations
McNeal Enterprises, Inc.
408.922.7290 x14
fax 408.922.0728

Which of course leads us to the fact the software licensing is a moving
target and unless you have a full time lawyer on staff constantly
researching EVERY package you own the odds are you will never pass a
software audit.


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22
At 04:47 PM 3/22/2001 , you wrote:
>Office with an open license agreement. My concern comes from all of the
>Dell Pc's I bought in the past 2 years that came equipped with MS Office
>2000 Small business edition. Do I need to have all of the actual licenses

Or, if you'd like to stay legal, save money, AND tell Micros**t to go piss
up a rope, check out Star Office 5.2 at www.sun.com It's a Free-Ware
office suite that rivals the high dollar ones. It also file-format
compatible with nearly every other office product made in the last several
years.

-Wayne
23
What we were told is that copies of the invoices are ok. Note, however,
that the PC's that you purchased MS-office small business edition on should
have just that. The licenses you purchased with a PC can NOT be transferred
to another PC. On the other hand the 35 licenses you purchased on the open
license agreement can be used on any of your PC's --- including as a upgrade
to what you purchased with the PC's. IE. Overlaying MS-Off small bus-ed
with a copy of MS-Off Professional.

Are you also legal on your NT server CAL's ? Your Exchange Server CAL's ?
Is license manager on your NT servers up to date ?

I have a database that I use to track software. One line per version of
each package. If I purchased a package and then 2 additional upgrades over
time I have 3 lines in the DB. Currently I have 162 lines in that table
representing about 60 different PC packages. My "Where used" table that
lists one line for each package installed on each PC contains 924 lines. We
only have 80 active PC's.

Don't forget the odd duck stuff. I just found a "Shareware" package in my
engineering group on 3 PC's. It's free to individuals so the engineers
figured they were ok to download it and use it. ( Yes, I've been trying to
break that habit for years ... ) It's a utility from a company in Germany
that allows you to search for words inside of documents across a directory.
If you read the fine print on the license agreement, which I did as part of
my internal audit, you will find that it's free for individuals but NOT for
companies. You can purchase it on the web for 50 DM ( marks ) --- I'm
still trying to figure out what that is in dollars. In the meantime I have
un-installed it from the 3 PC's.

Closer to home, read the license agreement with V 5.0 of Vantage. You are
ONLY allowed to have -2- backup copies of the software. We have 10 tapes in
a daily rotation, 8 tapes in quarterly rotation, and 5 tapes in a yearly
archive. When I backup my servers I do a full image backup. That gives me
23 tapes on the shelf and with V 5.0 I will be violating EPICOR's license
agreement. So far I have NOT installed V 5.0 and before I do I will have to
get a signed letter from EPICOR rescinding that clause or I will not be able
to install the release. Even if EPICOR tells you to ignore that clause on
the V5.0 license agreement if the BSA does a full audit on you they can
still pop you for a $ 25,000 fine --- theoretically for each tape that is in
violation. In my case that would be 21 x $ 25,000 .....

Yes, this is insane ...

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Goss [mailto:bobg@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 3:48 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


Thanks Todd......Guess I should have taken a more responsible approach to
maintaining a complete list of licenses. I purchase 35 copies of Microsoft
Office with an open license agreement. My concern comes from all of the
Dell Pc's I bought in the past 2 years that came equipped with MS Office
2000 Small business edition. Do I need to have all of the actual licenses
or will copies of invoices be sufficient? Thoughts?

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd Anderson [mailto:tanderson@...]
Sent: March 22, 2001 4:39 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


If you don't respond to the first letter you will get a 2nd nasty gram with
a stronger request for you to comply.

Failure to respond will eventually end up in an on-site audit.

Either way I'd suggest you get it together .... NOW!


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Goss [mailto:bobg@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 3:34 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


I have just received a letter from Microsoft Canada's Legal department
asking me to provide them with the number of licenses that I have. How many
are legal and how many are not. What are my plans to (timeframe) for
legalizing all of my licenses. Not sure if I should reply to this letter,
however am concerned that no response = here's a company that SHOULD be
audited.

Bob Goss
BC Instruments

-----Original Message-----
From: James Martin Jr. [mailto:jmartin@...]
Sent: March 22, 2001 4:24 PM
To: 'vantage@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


i was kind of wondering too if anyone on the list has ever been audited?

-----Original Message-----
From: De Anna Godfrey [mailto:dgodfrey@...]
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 2:14 PM
To: Vantage
Subject: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?


Hi, I guess I am ignorant but how does a software audit work?

Thanks,

De Anna Godfrey
V.P. of Business Operations
McNeal Enterprises, Inc.
408.922.7290 x14
fax 408.922.0728

Which of course leads us to the fact the software licensing is a moving
target and unless you have a full time lawyer on staff constantly
researching EVERY package you own the odds are you will never pass a
software audit.


To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.>
< http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.> > Note: You must have
already
linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>
< http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> >



To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please go to:
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<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.>
< http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
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24
Three companies in our industrial park were audited a little over a year ago
and fined $100K +.
It sounds like they're like any other agency - if they audit, they will find
a problem. And the boss wonders why the computer person needs another
locked filing cabinet-what could I have in here that's so important? Isn't
it all on the computers?
25
> Are you also legal on your NT server CAL's ? Your Exchange
> Server CAL's ?
> Is license manager on your NT servers up to date ?

This brings up a questions I've had for a long, long time. We use a Per
Seat licensing scheme because we have 3 NT servers. I have approximately
110 CALs for 74 computers and about 90 user accounts. My problem is about
every month I get a message in the event log that NT is out of licenses. I
go in to the license manager and it shows accounts and users that have been
deleted 3 years ago as current. I revoke all the licenses and next month
they are all back again. I also show accesses from our corporate WAN, which
has been disconnected since September 2000. What is going on and how can I
get rid of them for good?

Incidentally, for purposes of distributing this thread to management without
forwarding 20 messages I have combined it all into a Word 2000 document
(yes, the version of Office 2000 SBE that came on my computer and 100% legal
... I think???). If anybody is interested in a copy, e-mail me off the list
and I will send it out or post it to the files section when the thread ends.

Rick
26
Rick,

Check out Technet documents "Q153140" and "Q194065"

Both describe how to reset the License files under NT-Server.

Mind you, I followed the instructions on my primary server and still had
the same problem of old licenses still showing. One of the documents
describes using some bat files to flash all PDC and BDC controllers at the
same time across the LAN/WAN. I haven't tried that yet but suspect it may
be the answer.

One of the strange oddities that I never knew was the CALs for NT-Server
reference people signing on to PC's, not just the PC's themselves. So if 5
people are sharing one PC you end up consuming 5 CAL's even though the 5
people are not on the PC at the same time. Somewhere within MS is a lawyer
or bean counter that thinks this is logical. I don't.

Todd Anderson


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Spriggle [mailto:rspriggle@...]
Sent: Friday, March 23, 2001 7:52 AM
To: vantage@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Vantage] Off Topic-W2K A-OK?



> Are you also legal on your NT server CAL's ? Your Exchange
> Server CAL's ?
> Is license manager on your NT servers up to date ?

This brings up a questions I've had for a long, long time. We use a Per
Seat licensing scheme because we have 3 NT servers. I have approximately
110 CALs for 74 computers and about 90 user accounts. My problem is about
every month I get a message in the event log that NT is out of licenses. I
go in to the license manager and it shows accounts and users that have been
deleted 3 years ago as current. I revoke all the licenses and next month
they are all back again. I also show accesses from our corporate WAN, which
has been disconnected since September 2000. What is going on and how can I
get rid of them for good?

Incidentally, for purposes of distributing this thread to management without
forwarding 20 messages I have combined it all into a Word 2000 document
(yes, the version of Office 2000 SBE that came on my computer and 100% legal
... I think???). If anybody is interested in a copy, e-mail me off the list
and I will send it out or post it to the files section when the thread ends.

Rick


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