[German]Microsoft slightly relaxed the licensing rules for Windows Server 2022 in early April to correct some annoyances and better keep up with the competition. For example, the requirement that VMs with 20 cores require a total of 24 licenses was removed. The colleagues at The Register noticed this and they picked it up in the post Microsoft makes Windows Server 2022 licenses a little less cynical.
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The changes are published simply as a table on Microsoft's Product Terms Page, which covers Windows Server Standard, Datacenter and Essentials licensing. There doesn't seem to be a separate tech community post.
I can't really figure it out from the table, and neither can the editors of The Register. They did, however, have the folks at Licensing School and Cloudy With a Chance on their side, who must have noticed three important changes.
- The requirement to have 16 core licenses before applying licenses to virtual machines, or use of the Azure Hybrid Benefit, which offers lower pricing for licenses in the Microsoft cloud, has been removed.
- The requirement in the Azure Hybrid Benefit that Windows Server Core licenses be held in groups of eight when licensing a virtual machine with more than 8 cores has arguably been dropped. Prior to this change, a VM with 20 cores required three groups of eight licenses (saving four licenses). Microsoft now lets customers match the actual number of cores with the licensed cores.
- When users license Windows Server through a subscription sold by a cloud service provider, they can use standard licenses with Windows Server Datacenter virtual machines. This small benefit is allowed when using on-premises VMs or with an authorized outsourcer.
The release of an opaque tabular listing with no explanation of the changes is probably aimed at making sure hardly anyone gets through there and notices the relaxations. There is no obvious regulatory need for the change, The Register writes, targeting the case when Microsoft allowed pro-core licensing largely due to pressure from the European Union. Were you aware of this change?
