New Microsoft website on product regulations for software and services

Up to and including February 2021, Microsoft has made the so-called Product Terms or Product Provisions (PTs) as well as Online Service Terms or Online Service Provisions (OSTs) available for download as documents on the Licence Terms website (Licence Terms | Microsoft Volume Licensing). The website also contains other relevant documents that govern the terms and conditions when using the manufacturer's software and services.

The Product Terms (PTs) contain all of the terms and conditions for purchasing licences for software applications and online services through Microsoft Volume Licensing programmes. If you subscribe to an online service through a Microsoft Volume Licensing Programme, the terms governing your use of the service are defined in the Online Service Terms (OSTs) document and the Licensing Programme Agreement.

New website with supposedly simple navigation

With the publication of the "March edition" of the above regulations, the interested reader must now go to a new website for the product regulations to view the current regulations. You can find it under this link: https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/terms/

According to the manufacturer, there is now a single website with easy navigation. So the idea was to make everything easier and more intuitive. But we cannot share this experience so far!

That's why we would like to give a little start-up help here for navigating the new site.

In order to understand how this new website works and how the previously familiar documents can be created, a longer "familiarisation phase" is required.

The following points make it easier to work with the website:

• The product provisions (PTs) and provisions for online services (OSTs) are now combined in one provision.
• A printout/download in Word format is possible if you have selected the desired language in the upper right-hand margin of the website and - very important - the programme to the left of it (red exclamation mark), through which you have purchased the products or services whose provisions you wish to view. The printout/download as a Word document is triggered by clicking on the printer symbol to the right of the language setting. The "effective date" here means the month and year for which you wish to view the provisions.
• In the navigation on the left margin you can select or focus on certain areas. If you want to print these in isolation, for example to keep the document slim with only information that is important for the intended purpose, you can include selected areas in the printout after clicking on the print symbol in the top right-hand corner.

A good knowledge of English is currently a must

The switch to the German language, for example, has not been well solved so far. Selecting the language "German" does not currently result in the Word document to be produced being created in German, although the same text can be displayed in German on the website.

So anyone who prefers a document that can be sent for themselves or their customers, or who would like to provide one for reasons of due diligence, must (currently still) make do with English here.

The current notice (as of 15.03.2021) that the website is still under construction is of little consolation, because the product provisions for March 2021 will become part of the underlying rights of use and terms and conditions for every newly concluded contract or newly created subscription. Good for the licensee who knows contractually reliable English!