How would you like to entirely set up your computer as a development machine with legitimate Microsoft software for FREE?
This is what the MSDNAA is offering you!
What is the MSDNAA? According to Microsoft’s site for it: “MSDN AA is the easiest and most inexpensive way for students and faculty in the technology and design fields to get the latest Microsoft software they need”. In a most basic level, Microsoft provides free software (excluding Office) to all Science\Engineering students such that they can use, test and evaluate it.
So, to get the most of the MSDNAA, you should set up a development environment on your laptop or home PC. How do you do this? Simple: Firstly, get yourself Windows Vista and Visual Studio 2005 (or 2008 if you can find it), then goto the Its Not Cheating site (Watch this space for the link) and get yourself Office Ultimate 2007 for $75. Now you have a basic set up that you can start to do development and assignments on. If you want to get serious grab Virtual PC 2007, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 – with these 4 tools you have 3 perfect test environments (Vista, XP and Server 2003) that will allow you to do some serious development and testing.
Before you go off and set up your machine, there are also a couple of things that you need to know. Firstly, if you take out an Operating System, you also need to get another piece of software (you’ll note that my recommendations take this into account). Secondly, the MSDNAA Licence FAQ specifies: “Usage of MSDN AA software is always limited to non-commercial academic use”
MSDNAA Info Per University
If your University isn’t here – please contact us
- Curtin University – Go to 314.238 and find a ComSSA Committee member
- UWA – Follow the link to the CSSE info page on Downloads. You will need to complete an application form, and then you can borrow the CDs or download the software online.
http://web.csse.uwa.edu.au/school_and_systems_information/school_systems_information/downloads
- Daniel
Curtin MSP
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