I've received a ton of email from readers who had taken advantage of Microsoft's too-good-to-be-true TechNet Standard subscription only to discover this week that, suddenly and silently, the number of available product keys they had for Windows 7, Office 2010, and other products had dropped from 10 to just 2. Was this Microsoft waking up to the obvious and changing its policies? Or was it just an error?
Turns out it's just a web issue, and not a policy change.
This is a web site issue. Our TechNet team is working on it. Sorry for the inconvenience.
When it is fixed, subscribers can request 10 product keys again.
So that's good news, of course. On the other hand, each product key can be used on up to 10 different PCs, so even with just two keys, you're looking at 20 installs.
Related: Windows 7 Tip of the Week: Save Even More Money with a TechNet Standard Subscription
Thanks to William E. for the link.
UPDATE: Bad news, people. This isn't a mistake. Microsoft has, in fact, changed the terms for both TechNet Standard and Professional. I've got the details in this week's Mailbag:
I called TechNet myself. And what I discovered is that, yes, Microsoft did just change the terms of the TechNet Standard and Pro subscriptions. For the Standard subscription, Microsoft is only providing two product keys for Office 2007, Office 2010, Windows XP, and Windows 7. For Professional, it's five; both were previously ten. However, subscribers can request additional keys via email. And I verified with Microsoft that each product key is still good for ten activations.
Ugh.