Microsoft Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool 2.0

The Outlook Configuration Analyzer Tool 2.0 (OCAT ) has been replaced by the Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT). The OffCAT tool provides all of the same functionality as the OCAT tool, but it also allows you to scan more Office programs (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word).

 

OffCAT download

Download Documentation

Digital Textbooks might be able to tell if you did your work.

CourseSmart offers an education package to schools that allows professors to monitor what their students read in their textbooks as well as the passages they highlight according to a report from the New York Times.

CourseSmart acts as a provider of digital textbooks working with publishers like McGraw-Hill, Pearson, and John Wiley and Sons. The NY Times describes books in use at Texas A&M University, which present an “engagement index” to professors that can be used to evaluate students’ performance in class.

This will be another method the University and Instructors will be able to gauge why a student might be having problems in the course. It will tell them whether they have opened the digital textbook and what pages they have viewed, when they viewed them and how much time they spent reading the textbook.

So the question is going to be is how accurate this information will be in reporting back the students’ “engagement index”. Can the system be gamed and what assumptions does the software make in determining the index. Also, how does the software determine between someone studying really hard from one that is just plain clueless and in a panic trying to catch up on things they either don’t understand

Either way this is going into full gear next fall and it will interesting to see what the results will be. I think that if handled right it could be an effective tool learning more about the quality of the class content, instructor lectures and how much work is actually done by the student. All of these factors contribute to learning process.

For more info on CourseSmart click here…

Local News Station Reports warning about ‘Microsoft’ protection plan scam

This newscast discusses one of the new ways that people are being tricked into sharing their personal information with scammers and tricksters. In this case the individual was called by someone claiming that they were from Microsoft and that he wanted to sell her a protection plan for her computer.

Rule #1: You are not going to get unsolicited calls from a real company. They may send you an email as advertising but nothing so in your face.

Rule #2: Anything having to do with connecting to your computer, again unsolicited by you should automatically flag an alert to you. Don’t trust this call.

Rule #3: Anything having to do with credit cards, banks or any other financial payment system that is again unsolicited by you should be flag as well. Tell the people thank you and hang up. Call your financial institution using a number that you know is right and ask them about whatever was proposed to you.

The key here is, if you haven’t noticed, don’t trust anyone that is trying to get information from your or access anything that you own that you have not asked specifically for them to do so.

Dropbox Upgrade includes Photo Albums Now!

So if you have allowing Dropbox to upload your pictures from your devices to your storage area then you are probably accumulating a lot of pictures there now. If you want to find a group of images around a theme you can now associate them with an Album. This will help facilitate showing them off when you want family or friends to see just a specific group of images. It would appear that each image can only be associated with one album at a time. Which is too bad.

This is a good start but hopefully they will keep working on it to give us some more capabilities.

VMware Horizon Mirage

Here’s a quick video on VMware’s Mirage product. Really looks interesting from an IT perspective in managing a large group of PC’s that have mostly the same setups on them. It allows you to separate the PC into logical layers and to keep backups of desktop images to enable quick recovery or rollback in case of failure.

Priced at $1,815/10 pack this is a relatively elegant method of ensuring uptime for your office workers on their machines.When you compare this cost to the downtime for your users and the support costs to bring them back up you can easily see the cost savings.

How can this product help you? Use it to speed up Window 7 Migrations, or to Simplify PC Backup and Desktop Recovery and easily Manage Remote and Branch Office PCs. If you have 10 or more machines then this product can be a big benefit for you.

• Download Datasheet
• Download FAQ
• Windows 7 Migration Solution Brief
• Horizon Mirage Reviewer's Guide
• VMware Horizon Mirage FAQ document

Evernote Premium account now has Document Search

The amount of storage is not the only reason to go Premium with Evernote. Yes the prime reason to go premium is to increase your upload capacity but you also get the following benefits:

• Larger upload capacity to 1GB each month
• Offline Notebooks- easily access your data when you don’t have a network connection (iOS and Android only)
• Share your notes with others – allows you easily share your notes with other members of your team
• Each Note can be up to 100MB’s in size
• On iOS and Android devices you can add a lock to the Evernote app to provide an extra level of security
• When you attach a document in a note that are either office documents or PDF files they are fully searchable including scanned PDFs
• Premium includes versioning. This is particularly helpful when sharing notes to be able to go back in history to previous versions of notes.
• Images are also searchable if they contain text within the image.While this process is not limited to the Premium subscription but the images are processed faster. Evernote puts them at a higher priority if you have a Premium Account.
• Last but not least you also get priority support. You will be sent to the front of the queue for a faster support response.

Do you need a Universal BIG Battery Solution

I saw this being discussed on Before You Buy and it really peaked my interest. One of the things that really caught my attention was that the charge lasts up to a year once it is fully charged. It will provide a decent charge for anything from a notebook to a phone. It will provide a laptop with anywhere from 2 –6 hours extended battery life, a netbook up to 8 extra hours, and a smart phone up to 42 extra hours. Use it for providing power to a hotspot or recharging any of your mobile devices. You can charge up to 3 devices at one time, can be recharged over and over again, is lightweight and has a 3 year  limited warranty.

Product Features

• Portable, rechargeable battery for netbooks, tablets, and smartphones--just plug into USB port for instant power
• Three outputs provide simultaneous charging of three devices at once; also great for gaming devices and MP3 players
• Provides up to 5 extra hours of use for laptops, and up to 8 hours for netbooks
• Comes with 6 tips to fit a wide range of devices
• Comes pre-charged out-of-the-box; maintains charge for up to 1 year

MSRP is $179 and it is one of the products that I think could help cut down on your mobile kit weight and provide a big benefit of offline power access.

SkyDrive app for iOS has been updated

Microsoft’s attempts to make SkyDrive the place to store your files in the cloud continues to move forward. If you are an Office 2013 user or are sharing documents with your team in the SkyDrive cloud any and all updates to the SkyDrive clients are always welcome. It seems to be getting better with each advancement and I am using it house all of my OneNote notebooks that I access from all my devices, whether it is my work or home pc, notebook, or any one of my many mobile devices but android and iOS.

Microsoft’s current release is v3.0 for the SkyDrive app for iOS that includes improved photo features, an updated UI, and a number of other new features and enhancements. You can install or update the SkyDrive app for iOS now via iTunes.

Here are the updates that have been made to v3.0 of the SkyDrive app for iOS:

Support for iPhone 5 and iPad Mini Updated app icons and user experience Works better with your photos: Download full resolution photos to your iPhone or iPadControl the size of photos you upload and download Photo metadata is retained when you upload to SkyDrive Opening and saving files to SkyDrive works better with other apps on your iOS devices Many other small changes, bug fixes and performance improvements

Frommer’s Travel Books are not dead…

Founder Arthur Frommer has bought his brand name back from Google, and he plans to continue publishing the printed guides. After Google announced that they were closing down the printed product of these guides a quick response from the original owner may  guarantee publishing will begin again. Hopefully. When I was in the service I had several of his printed guide books in my car as we toured around Europe on the weekends. However with today’s electronic devices do we really need to have a physical book to be reading from? I have already purchased eBook guides that I use to get around different towns that my wife and I explore and I use either my phone or my Nexus 7 to be able to read them and this works out pretty well.

Frommer’s was founded in 1957 and has changed hands several times over the decades. Simon & Schuster bought the brand in 1977, and it shuffled through a handful of publishers before landing at John Wiley & Sons in 2001. Wiley said in March 2012 that it would sell off several of its publishing assets in a bid to re-focus the company, and Google bought Frommer's five months later.

Feedly has become my Reader of Choice

So with all of the hype surrounding the Google decision to get rid of Google Reader I have had to decide what I am going to use post GRDR. I am not as happy with the interface in the desktop browsers but It is workable. It does fit in well both on my iPad and both the 7inch and 10.1 inch Android tablets that I am using.

It works nicely with Pocket, Instapaper and Email allowing me to grab things that I want to take more time with. I used GReader Pro prior to this on Android and Mr.Reader on IOS. These both had this same capability. I use these programs to allow me to quickly go through the RSS’s that I am scanning each day. I like it better than some of the other graphical programs like FlipBoard but I am worried what is going to happen July 1st when Google Reader disappears.

Google Keep, is it worth looking at?

Google’s new note taking program seems to be taking a stab at the higher end note taking applications. Evernote of course is what comes to my mind being the current top contender in this application category. Evernote was initially put together as an application that can be accessed by many types of devices so your data is available to you no matter how you access. It is a product that has far surpassed Microsoft’s OneNote which was the first to market and failed to capture the market share I thought it deserved primarily because it was only available on the Microsoft desktops. OneNote has been slow to coming to the cloud and this has been what has been holding it back. Evernote is still king and both Google Keep and OneNote will have a hard battle ahead of them to surpass its current lead.

Here is a great comparison article by Christina Warren of Mashable discussing the differences between Evernote and Google Keep. Her conclusion, Evernote’s list of capabilities far exceed what Google is bringing to game. However, if you are a heavy Google application user, Keep’s integration with Google Drive might make it more appealing to you.

QuickBooks Issues and Solutions

If you run into issues with QuickBooks not opening in Multi-User Mode or connecting to the server database try the following:

1) Make sure the server and workstations are all updated to the newest version of QuickBooks.

(http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/ProductUpdates.aspx?lid=UpdateDownloads%20%28SUB%20HDR%29)

2) Try running the QuickBooks File Doctor on the Company file that they need to use.

(http://http-download.intuit.com/http.intuit/QBFD/qbfd.exe)

3) Lastly, if the above do not work, open up services on the server and restart any service that begins with “QB”.  Then on the workstations

Make sure to open task manager and “End Process Tree” on all processes starting with “QB”.  Once completed try logging into the company file again.

If these steps do not work you may need to try reinstalling the program starting with the workstation first and then the server if necessary (remembering that

If you can access the company file from any workstation, back up the company file before proceeding).  Once reinstalled, verifiy that they are completely up to

Date and try recovering and reopening the company file.

If this still does not work, calling QuickBooks is your only other option.

Chase Richardson

Apple Specialist & PC Technician

Bachelor's Degree in M.I.S

Desktop shortcuts disappear in Windows 7

Article ID: 978980

To work around this issue, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Remove all but 4 broken shortcuts from your desktop

Keep the number of broken shortcuts on your desktop to four or less. You might accomplish this by removing all but 4 of your most used shortcuts on the Desktop. If have more than 4 shortcuts, you can also create a folder on your desktop and move the shortcuts to that folder. These shortcuts will not be removed since they don't sit directly on the desktop. 

Method 2: Disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter

If you must have more than four broken shortcuts on your desktop, you can disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter.
Note If you disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, all the maintenance tasks that it performs are disabled. Therefore, we recommend that you use Method 1.
To disable the System Maintenance troubleshooter, follow these steps:

1. Click Start

   

   , and then click Control Panel.

2. Under System and Security, click Find and fix problems.
   Note: If System and Security is not displayed you will need to change how you are viewing Control Panel. To change your view, click the down arrow in View by and select Category. View by is located in the top right corner of the Control Panel.

   

3. On the left navigation pane, click Change settings.
4. Set Computer Maintenance to Off.

Google is retiring Reader–June 2013

What the heck am I going to do? My daily routine both in the morning and in the evening is to quickly sift through the many RSS feeds that I have subscribed to and is managed in my Google Reader account. I use several different programs as well as Google’s web interface to work with these feeds but the central control has been my Google Reader account for years. Now that Google has put it on the discontinue list I am going to need to do something to replace it.

I am not a big user of Facebook or Twitter, I guess I am still old school there. When I sit down to comment on a something that catches my eye, I like to provide as much information about that subject as I can as both a reference for myself as well as for others. The reason I have this blog is to offer up information that I find helpful to clients as well as our service people.

So what am I going to do to replace this tool? One of the programs that is being talked about out there is called Feedly. In a recent post from Feedly, they state that they have been anticipating Google shutting down Google Reader and that they have been working a project they called Normandy which is a Feedly clone of the Google Reader API. Feedly is planning to seamlessly transition to their Normandy backend when Google Reader shuts down.

If you are a Google Reader, give Feedly a try before July 1st, and you will be able to migrate seamlessly:
Feedly for iOS
Feedly for Android
Feedly for Chrome
Feedly for Firefox
Feedly for Safari

Note 1: if you are migrating from Google Reader to feedly, here are some tips on how to personalize feedly to better match your existing workflows. If you have any feature request please add it on our feature request page.

Note 2: if you are a third party developer using the Google Reader API and would like to integrate with Normandy, please send an email to remi@feedly.com. We would love to keep the Google Reader ecosystem alive.

Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool 1.0

I seem to be on a Microsoft Office kick right now so here is a little something that may help you diagnose problems with your MS Office installation. Look for it in the Microsoft Download Center. You can get the downloads you need there.

Overview

The Microsoft Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT) is a program that provides a detailed report of your installed Office programs. This report includes many parameters about your Office program configuration and highlights known problems found when OffCAT scans your computer. For any problems that are listed in the report, you are provided with a link to a public-facing article (usually a Microsoft Knowledge Base article) on the issue so you can read about possible fixes for the problem. If you are a Help Desk professional, you can also save the report to file so that the report can be viewed in the Office Configuration Analyzer Tool on another client where the tool is installed. The Office Configuration Analyzer Tool 1.0 also includes a command-line version that can be used to collect an OffCAT scan without user intervention.

Microsoft Backs Down On Office 2013 Retail Licensing

We are happy that they have decided to listen to their customer’s complaints about its Office 2013 retail licensing agreement. Microsoft has altered the licensing language as follows according to Jevon Fark from the Office Team:

Updated transferability provision to the Retail License Terms of the Software License Agreement for Microsoft Office 2013 Desktop Application Software

Can I transfer the software to another computer or user? You may transfer the software to another computer that belongs to you, but not more than one time every 90 days (except due to hardware failure, in which case you may transfer sooner). If you transfer the software to another computer, that other computer becomes the “licensed computer.” You may also transfer the software (together with the license) to a computer owned by someone else if a) you are the first licensed user of the software and b) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement before the transfer. Any time you transfer the software to a new computer, you must remove the software from the prior computer and you may not retain any copies.

This change is effective immediately and applies to Office Home and Student 2013, Office Home and Business 2013, Office Professional 2013 and the standalone Office 2013 applications.

Paul Thurrott, editor of the Windows SuperSite, offers his 2 cents on the situation here.

I think this is a real win for the Microsoft Customer base that needs the flexibility of moving their software when the upgrade their machines.

Here is Jevon Fark’s post on the Office News blog.

Choosing the Right Office 365 for SBS Server Customers

With the release of Server 2012 we no longer have a Small Business Server offering. We have sold a lot of this product in the past both in the Standard and Premium versions. This product was a real resource hog though but it gave big server features at a very reasonable price and this made it in many cases very desirable.

Microsoft has launched its new hosted Exchange product called Office 365 to help fill the gap this has left. The cloud suite, which features Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online, could provide an ideal upgrade path for Windows Small Business Server (SBS) customers. Exchange Server was one of the most often used features of Microsoft SBS product. The Server 2012 Essentials package will give you basic server function but has a few limitations. First there are no virtualization rights and second you are limited to a total of 25 clients. The pros are that it is optimized for cloud connectivity, has a simplified interface, is priced around $500 and comes with licensing for the 25 clients.

This is perfectly paired with one of the following: Hosted Exchange Online ($4/user/mo), Office 365 Small Business ($6/user/mo) or Office 365 Small Business 365 ($15/user/mo). So what are the differences?

	Hosted email (Exchange Online) Step up to enterprise-grade email that’s easy to manage and affordable	Office 365 Small Business Help your business thrive with web-based communication and productivity services	Office 365 Small Business Premium Work better virtually anywhere, at your desktop or on the go
	$4.00 user/ month	$6.00 user/ month	$15.00 user/ month
User maximum:	Unlimited	25 users	25 users
Office applications: Subscription to Office for up to 5 PCs/Macs per user.			Desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, and Lync.
Office Web Apps: Create and edit Office files via a web browser.	(View Attachments Only)	·	·
Office Mobile Apps:  Use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on select mobile phones and tablets.			·
Hosted email: Get business-class email, shared calendars, 25 GB of storage space per user, and the ability to use your own domain name.	·	·	·
Web conferencing: Conduct meetings over the web with HD video conferencing, screen sharing, and instant messaging.		·	·
Public website: Market your business with a website that is easy to set up, using your own company domain name. No additional hosting fees.		·	·
Spam and malware protection: Premium anti-malware protection and anti-spam filtering.	·	·	·
Community and phone support: IT-level web support and 24/7 phone support for critical issues.	·	·	·
Guaranteed 99.9% uptime: Peace of mind that your services are available with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, financially backed service level agreement (SLA)	·	·	·

This, of course, are not the only Office 365 choices available but is a great start when thinking about using the Server 2012 Essentials package in an entry level server installation. If you want a full copy of Office and all the functions of an enterprise company the Small Business Premium package would be a great deal for you. It not only includes the hosted Exchange system but also has Lync for system to system communication and last but not least you can install office on up to five of each user’s devices. So if you have some mobile warriors that need to be able to work at the office, home and on the road from all of the devices this might be a really good fit.

Office 365 Home Premium–Subscription for home use

Microsoft’s new subscription model offer provides the home consumer an annual subscription package that will cost you $99 per year and provides you with licensing for using Office on five devices. You will also get 20gb’s of online storage and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month. It includes the following products:

	Word In the new Read Mode, text reflows automatically in columns for easier on-screen reading Fewer menus means more focus on your content—see only the tools you need, when you need them Open a PDF in Word, and edit content just as if you created it in Word Show your style by using Word templates in more than 40 categories
	Excel Each workbook has in its own window, making it easier to work on two workbooks— or two monitors— at once New functions in the math and trig, statistical, engineering, date and time, lookup and reference, logical, and text function categories The new Recommended Charts button lets you pick from a variety of charts that are right for your data
	OneNote Smoothly draw, erase, and edit with your finger, stylus, or mouse on any touch-capable device OneNote automatically converts your handwriting to text, so no worries about your handwriting The new Send to OneNote tool makes it easier to include documents or Web pages in your notebooks
	PowerPoint Presenter View allows you to see your notes on your monitor while the audience only sees the slide Smart Guides automatically appear when your objects are close to even, and tell you when objects are spaced evenly Support for more multimedia formats, such as .mp4 and .mov, more high-definition content, and more built-in codecs
	Outlook The People Card collects key details about a contact all in one place Add your local weather forecast right there in Calendar view, along with current conditions Receive push-based email, appointments, and contacts from Outlook.com, (formerly Hotmail) - right in your Outlook experience
	Access Simply type what you need to track and Access uses table templates to deliver an app that does the job A standardized app framework makes navigating apps familiar and easy Entering data accurately is a breeze with drop-down menus and recommendations that appear when you begin typing
	Publisher Insert and customize prebuilt page part building blocks, including calendars, borders, advertisements, and more Use professional-looking effects including softer shadows, reflections, and OpenType features Search your online albums on Facebook, Flickr and other services and add pictures directly to your document

Office 365 Home Premium

Setting up your account
To set up Office for the first time, visit www.office.com/setup and follow the instructions on the screen. Or, if you purchased online, you can go directly to www.office.com/myaccount to manage your account, because Office was set up automatically.

System requirements
See the system requirements page.

Compatibility with earlier versions
To find out about working with earlier versions of Office, visit the compatibility pack page.

Language options
To find the list of languages that Office is available in, see the FAQ. If you purchase Office 365 Home Premium you can visit www.office.com/myaccount to install Office in other languages.

Office on devices
Office currently supports PCs running Windows 7 or higher, and Macs with Mac OS X 10.6 or higher. Office Mobile supports Windows Phone devices running Windows Phone OS 7.5 and higher.

Skype
To find out about Skype world minutes, see the FAQ.

We are now a Carbonite Partner

I don’t know what took us so long but we are now able to setup and help you manage your cloud backup for home and business. Carbonite has five different plans to choose from. You should be able to find one of them that meets your needs. If you don’t need the more robust Gemini Backup Solution that we offer for your servers, this product should have the right plan at the right price for you to pick from.

The following is an overview of your choices:

Carbonite Home is $59 per year (per computer) with unlimited backup.

Carbonite HomePlus is $99 per year and provides unlimited backup for a single computer and USB attached external hard drive.

Carbonite HomePremier is $149 per year and provides unlimited backup for a single computer, USB attached external hard drive backup and courier recovery. Premium, feature-rich online backup for your computer and external hard drive.

Carbonite Business is $229 per year and comes with a base package of 250 GB of storage. This solution is intended to backup a distributed environment composed of multiple workstations, desktops or laptops. Carbonite Business is priced by the total storage need of the organization not the number of users/machines. Put another way the 250 GB could come from 5 workstations or 50 workstations and the price would not change. Carbonite Business does not support server operating systems.

Carbonite Business Premier is $599 per year for 500 GB of storage and is optimized for server backup. This is the solution you will deploy if you’re installing Carbonite on an actual server operating system. Carbonite Business is priced by the total storage need of the organization not the number of users/machines. Put another way the 500 GB could come from 1 server, 5 servers or 1 server/20 computers and the price would not change.

So there is no excuse now to get yourself setup with the right backup solution now!

Office 365 University

There are several ways for you, as a college student, faculty or staff member you can qualify for one of two offers that Microsoft has for you. This is a very cost effective way for you to have Office for you use while in college. You are licensed for up to two machines/devices that you can put it on and the subscription is for 4 years. The price, just $79.99. You also get 20GB of online storage on SkyDrive and 60 minutes of Skype International calls per month. This is great if you are doing a student exchange in another country or want to keep up with others that are out of country. The four year subscription includes any updates that may come down the line over the subscription period and you as an individual can only purchase one of these per four year period.

The Office 365 University offer provides you with the following Office applications:

	Word In the new Read Mode, text reflows automatically in columns for easier on-screen reading Fewer menus means more focus on your content—see only the tools you need, when you need them Open a PDF in Word, and edit content just as if you created it in Word Show your style by using Word templates in more than 40 categories
	Excel Each workbook has in its own window, making it easier to work on two workbooks— or two monitors— at once New functions in the math and trig, statistical, engineering, date and time, lookup and reference, logical, and text function categories The new Recommended Charts button lets you pick from a variety of charts that are right for your data
	PowerPoint Presenter View allows you to see your notes on your monitor while the audience only sees the slide Smart Guides automatically appear when your objects are close to even, and tell you when objects are spaced evenly Support for more multimedia formats, such as .mp4 and .mov, more high-definition content, and more built-in codecs
	OneNote Smoothly draw, erase, and edit with your finger, stylus, or mouse on any touch-capable device OneNote automatically converts your handwriting to text, so no worries about your handwriting The new Send to OneNote tool makes it easier to include documents or Web pages in your notebooks
	Outlook The People Card collects key details about a contact all in one place Add your local weather forecast right there in Calendar view, along with current conditions Receive push-based email, appointments, and contacts from Outlook.com, (formerly Hotmail) - right in your Outlook experience
	Publisher Insert and customize prebuilt page part building blocks, including calendars, borders, advertisements, and more Use professional-looking effects including softer shadows, reflections, and OpenType features Search your online albums on Facebook, Flickr and other services and add pictures directly to your document
	Access Simply type what you need to track and Access uses table templates to deliver an app that does the job A standardized app framework makes navigating apps familiar and easy Entering data accurately is a breeze with drop-down menus and recommendations that appear when you begin typing

This is a very cost effective way for you to have Office for you use while in college. You are licensed for up to two machines/devices that you can put it on and the subscription is for 4 years. The price, just $79.99. You also get 20GB of online storage on SkyDrive  and 60 minutes of Skype International calls per month. This is great if you are doing a student exchange in another country or want to keep up with others that are out of country. The four year subscription includes any updates that may come down the line over the subscription period and you as an individual can only purchase one of these per four year period.

Do you qualify? Here is Microsoft’s Eligibility Requirements:

PROGRAM ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

This Program is available only to individuals who meet the criteria described below:

1. An “Eligible Student” means an individual who is a student, faculty or staff member at an eligible accredited educational institution geographically located in the United States and must be actively enrolled in at least 0.5 course credit hours at that educational institution and must be able to provide proof of enrollment to Microsoft or its appointed vendor upon request;
2. The Eligible Student must successfully verify their eligibility status through the Offer Site’s online student status verification process; and
3. The Eligible Student must have a Microsoft account or create one at the time of purchase.

If you participate in the Program, Microsoft reserves the right to contact you directly or through an appointed Microsoft vendor to verify that you are an Eligible Student. If you choose not to provide sufficient documentation to Microsoft or its appointed vendor that verifies that you are an Eligible Student, you agree to reimburse Microsoft for the difference between what you paid in connection with a discounted Program offer and the estimated full retail price of the same product(s). Microsoft will have sole discretion to determine the sufficiency of any documentation that you provide to verify you are an Eligible Student. By providing eligibility-related information to Microsoft’s appointed vendor, you agree that the vendor may share such information with Microsoft for Program-related purposes.

Microsoft, in its sole discretion, may accept other forms of validation to determine eligibility in lieu of the online student status verification process.

Microsoft, in its sole discretion, may determine the criteria for eligibility under the Program and may change the eligibility criteria or deny eligibility at any time and for any reason.

To take advantage of this offer go to: click here