Windows and Office - Installation, licensing

In the following article, you will find all the information you need on how to use Windows and/or Office at your workplace through the University Master Agreement.

The computer center joined the new university master agreement with Microsoft on 01.05.2021. This agreement allows all university institutions to continue to license Office and Windows on a rental basis. It is still a volume licensing agreement, but in contrast to the old state agreement, there are partial restrictions on the number of installations. All users (EQU) must now be licensed.

Runtime

The new master agreement has a general validity period of 3 years, which can be extended by a additional year. The earliest contract end date is therefore 30.04.2024.

Licenses

The licenses that can be purchased via the university master agreement are exclusively subscription licenses.

All EQU or each user must be provided with at least one A3 M365 license in the future. An upgrade to an A5 M365 license is possible.

Who is considered a user is defined by EQU (Educational Qualified User): "An employee or contractor (except students) who accesses or uses an Education Platform Product for the benefit of the institution".

This means that at least all employees of the university must be licensed if they are to or wish to use products such as Windows or Office.

What the M365 A3 or A5 license entitles to use, see below "Rights of use".

Charges

The computer center has initially procured sufficient licenses for the campus. An A3 license costs about 51 € per user per year (A5 would cost about 104 € per user per year). How the licenses will be billed has not yet been determined. As soon as this is clarified, we will announce it here.

Rights of use

The A3 M365 license includes different rights of use. Each licensed user is basically entitled to use the following desktop products:

4 times Windows 10 Enterprise, Education and Enterprise LTSC Upgrade (prerequisite is qualifying operating system, see Academic and Charity column).
Office Pro Plus 2016 or 2019 once on a work device.
Office 365 to be used on up to 5 devices and 5 additional mobile devices. *Please note here the notes on Office 365 and online services, see below.
For each A3 M365 license, one device that does not have a primary user (keyword: shared devices) may be equipped with an unpersonalized device license for the above-mentioned products. The software may not be used by unlicensed users (e.g., employees without an A3 license).

In addition, the M365 A3 or A5 license includes the following server usage rights (Core CAL):

Exchange
Sharepoint
Windows Server CAL
Endpoint Configuration Manager
System Center Endpoint Protection

A complete list of products that can be used with the "Microsoft 365 A3 or A5" license can be found on Microsoft's website.

Further explanations can also be found in Microsoft's FAQ (only available in German). The document is not legally binding, but explains many usage scenarios and questions about licensing and usage.

Download and activate the software

Windows 10 and Office Pro Plus 2016 and 2019

Windows 10 and Office Pro Plus 2016 and 2019 can be downloaded, as usual, via the download list. Only employees of the university have access to the download list.

The software can still be activated via the KMS server of the University of Tübingen. Please note: Your computer must be correctly connected to the university's internal network (at least VPN).

Activation usually takes place automatically. If the activation fails, you can perform a manual activation. The activation or installation instructions can again be found via the download list.

Office 365 and online services

Office 365 and the online services offered as part of M365, such as MS Teams, are not yet available due to aspects of data protection law that still need to be clarified. The Data Protection Officer of the University of Freiburg and the Legal Department are involved in the issue.

Data protection

Since the currently available products are subject to the current data protection regulations as before, please make sure that you configure Windows so that, for example, telemetry data is not transmitted. For more information, read our article on Windows 10 - corporate use and refer to the notes in our Wiki.

For information on the data protection of Office 365 and the online services, please read the notes above on Office 365 and online services.

Contact

If you have any questions, please contact us at tamara.ursprung@rz.uni-freiburg.de or call +49 761 203 4647.