How licenses are counted

From: Tim Williams (TimWilliams_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 10/31/04 

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:31:03 -0700

I'm running SBS 2003 at home.

I have 3 accounts for members of my family and one more that I use to log on
the the computer in my stereo/video system in the family room, for a total of
4 Windows "users' I have created.

I have 6 computers running WinXP. I also have a pair of TiVos (which run
Linux) that connect through my server to download program info from the
internet. These are obviously unauthenticated connections, not in the
security context of any of the users I added.

In addition to these, occasionally (like once every couple of months) a
friend makes transient use of my wireless access point to connect to the
internet. Again, they are not authenticating to my domain.

My question is, how many licenses should I have for this set up. If it's
per user, then the 5 that come with the system should cover the Windows
accounts I've created. But if I do per user accounting, how should the TiVos
get counted. And how about the transient occasional use by an
un-authenticated roaming wireless user? What if other friends made use of my
internet connection, either simultaneously or serially? Does per user mean
per physical person, or per windows "user" account. If it's per physical
person, can I create a dozen different Windows users that I use to maintain
different client personas (different desktops, different favorites, different
"My Documents") on my client machines? If it's per Windows "users", then
aren't all these un-authenticated connections all the same Windows "user"?

If I do per device accounting, then I would need 6 for the WinXP computers
and 2 for the TiVos. I've never had more than 1 transient wireless user, so
that would be only 1 more, right? How about the server machine? Does it
consume a device license? And I also have a wireless access point that has
the ability to download firmware from the internet. Does it consume a
license? All these machines at the very least make use of the DNS services
and NAT services of the server.

This is all rather confusing to me.

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