MSDNAA Subscription Information

Table of Contents

• MSDNAA Overview
• How to Obtain Software
• CNST Technical Support for MSDNAA
• CNST MSDNAA FAQ

What is MSDNAA?
The MSDN Academic Alliance is an annual membership program for technical departments in the area of Computer Science, Engineering, and Information Systems. This subscription includes Microsoft platforms, servers, and developer tools software.

Any CNST faculty member, along with any student who is taking at least one for-credit course from CNST is eligible to have a copy and use any of the MSDNAA software forever, as in "for life". Students are not required to remove or uninstall the software at the end of the semester or when they graduate from TSTC... it is theirs to use and keep for as long as they wish.

*** Important Information *** As part of the license agreement a you are limited to one installation only. Therefore you need to think carefully about where to install MSDNAA software. If you have more than one computer i.e. home computer and laptop or work computer, you will need to choose on which one you'd like the use the software.

The MSDNAA subscription administrator, E-Academy, keeps track of what software has been downloaded by each user. Therefore students should be warned that they should not remove software at the end of a semester as they may need it in a future class and would not be allowed to download it again.

What software is available?
A wide range of programming tools (Visual Studio.net, Visual Studio 6.0), operating systems (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003), software development and management (Visio and Project), and other packages are available. The subscription basically covers all Microsoft products with the exception of Office. The complete list of software is available at the TSTC-CNST E-Academy site, http://msdn01.e-academy.com/tstc_nimt/.

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The distribution of MSDNAA software is administered by E-Academy, a company hired by Microsoft to manage subscriptions for colleges and universities. In order to obtain MSDNAA software, you must first obtain an account for TSTC-CNST's E-Academy site, http://msdn01.e-academy.com/tstc_nimt/.

How to obtain an E-Academy Account
E-Academy accounts can be obtained by any CNST faculty member, students enrolled in a class using MSDNAA software, or any student taking a CNST course.

1. Faculty:
   Send an e-mail to John Hagle from your TSTC e-mail account. Your username will be your e-mail account. Therefore all communication, announcements and support for both faculty and students will be through TSTC e-mail accounts. You will receive an e-mail with your account information and website link. Please after logging in click on the support button and read the FAQ section. It is very informative and helpful.

2. Obtaining MSDNAA student accounts for a class:
   If you would like to use MSDNAA software as part of a course, you may obtain E-Academy accounts for your students. In order to set up these student accounts, the faculty member must send an e-mail to John Hagle with a complete list of your student's TSTC e-mail addresses (must be TSTC accounts). An easy method to attain this is by accessing your class's WebAdvisor course shell at https://www.tstc.net/index.asp. Go to the course listings panel and click the course link, which will display your class roster, including all your student's pace e-mail accounts. Copy those e-mail addresses and include them in an e-mail sent to John Hagle. Please be also sure to include your name and the course in which you will be using this software. Please make sure to send along any additional late registrants.

   It is important that you advise your students that all communication, announcements and support for MSDNAA and E-Academy will be through TSTC e-mail addresses. Therefore they need to refer to their TSTC accounts for any messages related to their accounts.

   Please note: Student accounts will only be active during the semester. They will be de-activated at the end of the semester, and CNST will not provide support for inactive student accounts. Faculty must request re-activation of student accounts, even if students used MSDNAA in previous classes.

3. Students:
   Students taking CNST classes that are not currently using MSDNAA software can also obtain an E-Academy account. Send e-mail requesting an MSDNAA account from your Pace student e-mail account to the CNST MSDNAA Administrator,  include your full name and your student ID number. Your enrollment in a CNST class will be verified, and you will receive notification about your account shortly. ***Important***You will be restricted to only one installation in total. If you "try out" something, then uninstall it but need it later for a different class, you will not be able to obtain the software. So be very careful about what you download and install.

   Please note: Student accounts will only be active during the semester. Your student account will be de-activated at the end of the semester, and can only be active while you are currently enrolled in a CNST class.

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CNST Technical Staff will provide the following support for MSDNAA:
• Create faculty E-Academy accounts
• Create and re-activate accounts for qualified CNST students
  **must be currently enrolled in at least one for-credit CNST course
  **management of accounts can only happen during the semester, i.e. while classes are in session
• Provide troubleshooting support for MSDNAA download problems
We cannot provide information or support on how to actually use any of this software.
Instead, refer to these sites:
• Microsoft Developer's Network - this site contains substantial documentation on all of these products
• MSDNAA Home
• Microsoft Home Page
We also cannot provide support for problems encountered during the installation of these products. Many of these downloads have quite complicated installation procedures which require you to first install patches to your operating system, and/or burn installation CDs from the files you have downloaded. You need to read (and print out!!!) the installation instructions from E-Academy and follow them exactly. Be sure to also reference the E-Academy FAQ.

For more information contact the CNST MSDNAA Administrator.

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©October 2004 TSTC/CNST, 1902 N. Loop 499, Harlingen, TX 78550