Why do I have to pay per-user licenses for shared computers?
Per-user licensing models become prohibitively expensive and difficult to manage on shared workstations that experience high employee turnover across multiple shifts. This forces administrators to either absorb massive ongoing subscription costs for hundreds of transient users or struggle with broken activation systems and local workarounds.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Using Office LTSC per machine with Cloud Drive Mapper for SharePoint access and device Intune licensesDid this help you?
- 2Limiting user access via Conditional Access policy to office IPsDid this help you?
- 3Leaving computers with local logins and a single local shareDid this help you?
- 4Using the migration method to transfer licensesDid this help you?
- 5Buying new license packsDid this help you?
- 6Using local Active Directory and TrueNAS test setupsDid this help you?
- 7Deploying Remote Desktop Services on multiple serversDid this help you?
- 8Relying on MSP recommendations for Microsoft 365 migrationDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“It makes absolutely zero sense to license every user. There are three shifts with decent turnover (they are always hiring and firing). Roughly 300 people would be cycling through these computers”source ↗
“Do I really need to set up a local share so I don't need to pay ridiculous licensing costs, identity security overhead, and labor overhead for dealing with all the turnover, for all these computers?”source ↗
“I feel like we are paying double for features we are not using, so I am looking at alternatives. Yet, all the MSPs just default to m365 and do not recommend anything else.”source ↗
“The licenses add up to so much money and management is demanding data sovereignty.”source ↗
“beware i got hit hard on 50 users doing RDS and had to convert everyone to premium licenses as basic and standard didnt allow 365 installed apps on a shared enviornment, look into that as it may bump your costs up ALOT more than youre thinking.”source ↗
“Today I try to activate them on the new 2019 server, but it say the licenses aren't valid and ask me to use another method.”source ↗
“I try phone but the numbers provided don't exist anymore and I try web, go throught the process, it say it work but at the last stage the pack ID is empty.”source ↗
Where this came up
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