Trivia
After an unexpected extended time of transition, severely delayed by COVID-19, the old VLSC portal is gone and replaced by admin.cloud.microsoft for most of all Volume Licensing customers.
I've noticed this final change today, when I was looking to edit permissions on licensing contracts for a customer.
*.cloud.microsoft new domain for portals formerly on microsoft.com. Find more inofficial guidance here: https://msportals.io/
Credits @Adam Fowler and community, for this amazing Portals overview
Where to find VLSC now?
The old webpage is still around and some few customer types are not moved yet. It also gives you brief pointers where you are heading to .
View on VLSC webpage - no longer giving you access to a Vista like User Experience
The new and vastly improved experience of VLSC is to be found in:
admin.cloud.microsoft > Billing > Your Products
example in admin.cloud.microsoft for permissions on contracts
Understanding "products" and licenses". Aren't they the same ?!
These products include access to following licensing programs MPSA, EA, Open Value, Open, Open Value subscription, commonly known as "VL" or Volume Licensing.
While there is also Licenses.
admin.cloud.microsoft > Billing > Licenses
The Licenses in contrary to products contains all MCA licenses. This program is called Microsoft Customer Agreement or more commonly known as CSP. These can be subscription licenses or CSP based perpetual licenses. Mind this, in case you have or will be buying such.
I cannot see any licenses there, while I used VLSC in the past - and a small rant
You will see your licenses in admin.cloud.microsoft, granted you did the VLSC to Azure Portal transition in time, around 2022 through late 2023 and have obtained your permissions correctly.
Very often, this included a process to transfer permissions from personal accounts, so called "Microsoft Accounts" (MSA), which are the ones you are using to login into home services, including Windows 11, Office 365 for Home, OneDrive, Skype, Xbox, to a Microsoft Business or School account (MBA), which is Entra AD and Azure powered.
To make things worse, Microsoft initially allowed creation of a MSA with your business email back then in VLSC.
Later, if your business went on with M365, Exchange Online, good luck to distinguish both having the "visually same UPN", while no longer being technically the same account. Many customers failed to realize they were using a home MSA for a business use case (here licenses), eventually when they changed their passwords for one of each.
If you have not made this transition (properly), you need to call the Microsoft VLSC support for assistance.
To make this super clear: I will NOT grant support in this thread. This is purely a commnunity contribution and informational.
What I can share, that this transition was not simple and consumed hours of my lifetime with customers. Some of them had one or even more so called "shadow tenants" in Azure. No fun to eliminate them and permissions in VLSC.
But if you eventually mastered this maze, fueled with unclear documentation back then, you are good to go.
Remember: Only Microsoft Business or School accounts are allowed.
Does every customer with former volume licensing now have an Entra AD / Azure tenant? - A friendly security advice!
A clear yes! The new portal works only with Business or School accounts only. These are powered by Entra AD, which includes an Azure Tenant, no matter you are using Azure or even M365 services or not.
Security considerations with the VLSC move
Clearly this does not mean you have to own an Azure Subscription, but the framework is the same and requires and deserves to be well protected! (MFA enforcement incoming!)
In worst case the main user of former VLSC Business or School account used for VLSC is now a Global Admininistrator of your tenant or still a shadow tenant.
Every shadow tenant takeover will inherit the first user as a Global Administrator. With all its consequences for security.
What's improved with the new portal experience? Any downsides?
Pros:
- it is fast, fast, and fast
- we got rid of a clunky UX in a vista theme, that did not match with any design language and UX of Microsoft at all. It was always like a time travel, including the performance
- you can search for items / contracts / licenses full text
- ISO downloads are no longer clunky and slow
- Easy access to licensing keys
- it is so much easier to handle Software Assurance and expiration
- you can easily export license information and dependency reports. Dependency reports are useful if you know you have a product or a contract but not where they fit together.
- setting up permissions does not eventually take up to 24hours or days to be effective
- permission editior has multiple steps, so mind the warnings like "not completed" but then it is also super easy and way smarter. You can add permissions independently from contracts and bulk actions are a breeze
- Microsoft teams must be happy to nearly eliminated one of their legacy systems without compromising the whole "on-premises" licensing. And from all talks with Licensing support, it was highly anticipated, too.
Cons:
- Requires more thinking about security now that is interweb with Entra ID identities
- MFA is required for good
- communication for this transition and finish was everything but good and transparent. Also communication in VLSC portal was not sufficient, as users / admins don't hang around there often. Unfortunately ppl once DL an ISO for a Windows Server version and then do not open this for next 5-10 years, instead of grabbing a patched ISO everytime they need it (this is highly recommended).
Feedback time
The new experience and permission editor is a breeze! Hats off Microsoft teams working on this.
It must be nothing but stressful to migrate this legacy bits of code into something useful.
As per customer reports, most of this change went unnoticed. While there was communication via email for the beginning of transition and "to do" to setup "marry" VLSC with a business account, nothing less than Entra and Azure, this change of the end of service was not communicated. Later found it was quite well known in the licensing community (SAM), but didn't catch much attention at customers or IT pros outside this bubble.
FAQs provided by Microsoft Volume Licensing Team
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/vlsc-faqs-home-page
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/work-school-accounts-migration-faq
Appreciate your like if you found this guidance helpful.
