<p>I came across this on slickdeals.net</p>
<p>Microsoft's Dreamspark program is giving away software/OS to college students (to get them hooked :P) . </p>
<p><a href="https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Products.aspx%5B/url%5D">https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Products.aspx</a></p>
<p>You need to verify your college e-mail to download them, and FSU is on the list. People kept asking me for the iso's since FSU is the only Florida school that's eligable (take that UF!). </p>
<p>It includes:
Visual Studio 2008 Professional (<3 C# .NET)
Server 2003 Standard Edition
SQL Server 2005 Dev Edition
Expression Studio
Game Studio 2.0
Visual Studio 2005 Professional</p>
<p>It also lists the express editions of dev IDEs + virtual server, but those are already free.</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
<p>i expected Microsoft points for buying things off of the xbox 360 live shop lol</p>
<p>whoops.i read it as Microsoft points.</p>
<p>lol, well I don't have a 360 yet.</p>
<p>I modded my wii with a wiikey, and I am happily playing import games and enjoying "backups". I wish I bought one from playasia, because the japanese virtual console is soooo much better than the US version.</p>
<p>Guilty Gear XX is my favorite game for wii, but that's really the only game I play besides SSB:B, and random bemani games like IIDX.</p>
<p>I'm waiting for a good 360 modchip/softmod (besides the optical drive emulation), and then I'll get a NTSC-J version.</p>
<p>Those downloads will be useless without a legitimate Microsoft Product Key.</p>
<p>Nothing is free, except betas, Linux and some other flavors of UNIX.</p>
<p>What? MSDN is giving away product keys to those products, which I explained above. You just verify that you are a student, and they send you the product keys. You then download the software and register using that key. </p>
<p>And there are lots of free open source/GNU licenced products available. I haven't paid for software in a very very long time. For example:</p>
<p>Photoshop - Gimp
Office - OpenOffice + Thunderbird
and so on. All of these are in stable releases as well.</p>
<p>As for the OS, I have never directly paid for an operating system. I always buy a computer with it preinstalled, or run linux.</p>
<p>I am referring to operating systems, not applications. MSDN has some restrictions associated with use. Caveat emptor.</p>
<p>I'm a bit confused... Windows server 2003 is an operating system that they are giving away (with a valid product key). Please clarify what you are trying to say.</p>
<p>Please see what MSDN is all about: MSDN</a> Subscriptions Licensing</p>
<p>"MSDN Subscriptions are licensed to individuals who may install the provided software without restriction. Software provided through MSDN Subscriptions is licensed for design, development, test and demonstration of your applications. MSDN Premium subscribers may also use the 2007 Microsoft Office system* for any use."</p>
<p>MSDN is for developers of software, basically. It is not a give-away program...unless you have a subscription and are developing software that uses Microsoft products as a platform.</p>
<p>Wait a sec...This is Microsoft's DreamSpark program: <a href="https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Overview.aspx%5B/url%5D">https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/Overview.aspx</a></p>
<p>OK, it may be more forgiving than MSDN typically is, but carefully read the use restrictions.</p>
<p>I know very well what an MSDN subscription is, seeing as how I work as a network administrator and have a current subscription. This program is separate from the paid MSDN service, and was designed to allow college students to use their products when they otherwise wouldn't be able to afford them. I imagine they are trying to get you to become familiar with these programs, so that you continue to use them in the workplace. The products mentioned above are COMPLETELY free through the promotion. I just posted it so that others could take advantage of it if you are eligable (have a FSU e-mail).</p>
<p>My apologies - my initial reaction was that it was too good to be true. I've never known Microsoft to give away an OS - except through MSDN with heavy restrictions and expense.</p>
<p>Ok, I understand. I was skeptical at first, but found out that it was true, and that is why I posted it.</p>
<p>Here's more from the Washington Post about DreamSpark: washingtonpost.com</a> - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines</p>
<p>Students wanting to use Server 2003 as an OS will have to understand that it is a much more locked-down OS than say Win XP. They will have to enable functionality manually on some things. Great OS for free, but just realize what you are getting - a server OS.</p>
<p>btw - I use Gimp but dislike OpenOffice relative to MS Office 2007.</p>
<p>Server 2003 is the most stable OS microsoft has released since Win98SE (although you can't hit "cancel" to login, haha). It also bypasses the max connections limitation that XP has, and allows you to assign server roles (domain controller, DHCP, SAN, etc...). I use Server 2003 R2 on all my servers, and haven't had a single problem with the OS (although the same probably can't be said about Server 2008). I really don't like vista, since there are so many compatibility issues. Aero is also a huge memory hog, and I don't think it's worth it (even with my Quad Core with 4GB of RAM)</p>
<p>Also, since the new .docx and .xlsx are all open formats (basically a .zip archive of XML for each section), I think that OO.org will vastly improve their compatibility with Office 2k7. Although it lacks support for Exchange Server protocols (I don't think thunderbird works either).</p>
<p>I use Server 2003 and also WinXPx64 in my apps. They are fine. Server 2003 is very stable and not picky hardware wise as NT4 was and UNIX can be. Not sure what sp I have for S2k3. </p>
<p>I use various flavors of Linux and Mac OSX 10.5 as well.</p>
<p>Vista does seem to be a pain, I'm currently avoiding it simply because it presents no advantage and my boxes don't see the Internet. 64-bit OSs rock. :)</p>