Developer thoughts on Microsoft Office licensing

In an effort to stem the tide of pirated copies of Office, Microsoft is testing a new program that verifies whether a version of Office is licensed or not. You’ve probably noticed the Genuine Windows program that’s in force right now. Whenever you get a Windows update or download a file from MSDN, your copy of Windows goes through a verification process. So far Microsoft has done an excellent job not making the verification process too obtrusive. I hope it’s the same for Office.

As a developer I do have one concern–which really doesn’t have anything to do with the Genuine program, but rather Office licensing in general. Here’s the issue: When developing an add in for Office, such as InkGestures, you have to do a lot of testing with a wide variety of configurations. Virtual PC makes this easy from a management standpoint, because it allows five, ten, or whatever permutations of the OS, Office, and the .Net platform as needed. However, each installation requires authentication. I just can’t install a copy of Office, do a test, and blow the partition away. As soon as I bring up a copy of Office it has to get a license from the Microsoft server. Each time I do this I gulp wondering if I’ve used up all my licenses and will be unable to develop further.

Here are some test configurations I’ve already used with InkGestures (some in VPC, some on other computers):

* Tablet OS SP2 with .Net 1.1 by itself (Office not installed)
* A non-Tablet OS by itself (Office not installed)
* Tablet OS SP2 with Word and no PIAs (all updates)
* Tablet OS SP2 with Word and PIAs (all updates)
* Tablet OS SP2 with full Office install (all updates)
* Tablet OS with .Net 1.0 (no office)
* Tablet OS SP2 with .Net 2.0 with Word and PIAs
* Tablet OS SP2 with .Net 2.0 with Word and PIAs and other addins installed (and uninstalled), such as TEO 3.
* Development platform with Tablet OS SP2, .Net 1.1, Office and PIAs

So far this hasn’t been too bad, but now that I’m gearing up for testing the InkGestures add-in for PowerPoint, I’m wondering if these test configurations will do. Up to this point the test images are spread across a couple different systems (not all are running on Virtual PC). I’d really like to create a more formal test system and build these test images on a desktop with more horsepower, but I’m not sure how the licensing will work out so I haven’t done anything yet.

I’m guessing that as a developer there will be a point where I need to get more Office licenses in order to do testing and expand our product line further. I don’t know. As Office becomes more of a platform and more and more developers develop for it, licensing of Office is becoming as critical an issue as it is for the OS itself.