Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Q: What are these “Technet Subscriptions” I get with Software Assurance?

I get this question a lot.  People that own Software Assurance (also referred to as “SA” or “Maintenance”) on their Volume Licensed Microsoft products, have a variety of really cool benefits.  One of these is “Priority Subscriber Support” from the Technet Forums.  SA customers are given a limited number of subscriber licenses that allow employees to access these forums at no charge.  (Traditionally, customers have to either be full Technet Plus Subscribers or full MSDN Subscribers to access these forums)

The way it works is you simply post your technical questions in the TechNet Forums to receive a response from a Microsoft engineer within 2 business days if the community hasn’t already gotten you the answer.  To receive Priority Support in the TechNet Forums designated below, please make sure to sign in with the same Windows Live ID you use to access your other subscription benefits; no special configuration is needed.

You can get answers to your technical questions in a variety of subject areas.  Here’s a small sample of the forums where Microsoft engineers answer questions:

• Windows Server General
  Windows Server Clustering
  Windows Server Directory Services
  Windows Server File Services and Storage
  Windows Server Group Policy
  Windows Server Hyper-V
  Windows Server Management
  Windows Server Migration
  Windows Server Network Access Protection 
  Windows Server Network Infrastructure Servers
  Windows Server Platform Networking
  Windows Server Print/Fax
  Windows Server Security
  Windows Server Setup Deployment
  Windows Server Server Core
  Windows Server Server Manager
  Windows Server Terminal Services
  Windows Server WSUS
  Windows Server Windows PowerShell
• Exchange Server General
  Exchange Server Transport
  Exchange Server Secure Messaging
  Exchange Server Monitoring
  Exchange software updates
  Exchange Server Admin
  Exchange Server Anti Virus/Anti Spam
  Exchange Server Clients
  Exchange Server Compliance
  Exchange Server Deploy
  Exchange Server High Availability/Disaster Recovery
  Exchange Server Migration
  Exchange Server Mobility
• Sharepoint General
  Sharepoint Setup and Admin
  Sharepoint Design and Customization
  Sharepoint Development and Programming
  Sharepoint Business Data Catalog
  Sharepoint Business Intelligence
  Sharepoint InfoPath Form Services
  Sharepoint Workflow
  Sharepoint Excel Services
  Sharepoint Search
  Sharepoint Enterprise Content Management
  Sharepoint Accessibility
  Sharepoint Social Computing
  Sharepoint Community Advancement
  Sharepoint Collaboration

FORUMS: TechNet Forums
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ms788697.aspx