Microsoft Terminal Server "User" CAL Question

In Microsoft world, you need a CAL per user, not login. If someone has two different identities (it could happen) you only need one CAL for that user. But if you have a single account that several people access, each person who accesses must have a CAL.

The person who is allowing 100 users to access a single login covered by a single CAL is violating the TOS. If they are a business and Microsoft catches them, Microsoft will prosecute. In fact, there is a watchdog agency where violations of this sort can be reported.

Your company may want to consider if they really want to keep this client as you could get dinged for not reporting. But you may want to validate that as I don't know how far MS takes that.

So you can have the same account logged in 100 times and you still need 100 CAL's.

If someone is not complying with the M$ Licensing Agreement as Tig has already said they run a very big risk of facing problems with M$ in a Big Way and M$ is very heavy on this they normally start around the $500,000.00 for a small infringement for a First Offence and work up from there depending on just how Blatant the Breach of the Licensing Code is.

Personally I wouldn't want anything to do with a company who openly admits to something like this as when M$ finds out they tend to investigate all contacts that the Offender has to see if anyone else is doing the same or similar thing. When that happens you need to be 80,000% sure that you have done Absolutely Noting Wrong with the Licensing on M$ Products this also included decommissioned Computers that may still have M$ product on them that have not as yet been wiped clean when Volume Licenses are concerned. According the M$ policy you should first clean off the old computer and then install the required Software on the replacement computer and when that is finished take it to where it is going to be used. If you install the required Software and then replace the computer at that point in time you have Broken The Licensing Agreement with M$ and are Guilty and as such if caught will be in line for a really hefty fine for the breach.

Col

I could have sworn there was some special licensing, where only the single account was required. Maybe I'm thinking of web applications - I'm fairly certain that the licensing on those is that just the IIS User account needs to access it, so you can get away with having one license and multiple users hitting it (such as for a comercial website).

However, I'm not 100% certain as Microsoft's licensing is very strange when it comes to websites.

Your best bet would be to find out exactly what is required, so you hear it straight from the horses mouth.

I could have sworn there was some special licensing, where only the single account was required. Maybe I'm thinking of web applications - I'm fairly certain that the licensing on those is that just the IIS User account needs to access it, so you can get away with having one license and multiple users hitting it (such as for a comercial website).

However, I'm not 100% certain as Microsoft's licensing is very strange when it comes to websites.

Your best bet would be to find out exactly what is required, so you hear it straight from the horses mouth.