Licensing FAQ

No, Outlook client license was no longer included with any Exchange CAL after Exchanger Server 2003 – it must be purchased separately from Exchange Server 2010. The Exchange Server 2010 Standard CAL provides the rights to access e-mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks through either Outlook Web App (OWA) or through a mobile device via ActiveSync.

These features have evolved into “Retention Policies” in Exchange Server 2010 and now include the additional flexibility of applying policies to individual emails in addition to folders. See the following table for an explanation of how these features have evolved across versions:

Many of the features from these separate technologies have been updated and combined to create Exchange Server 2010 “Mailbox Resiliency” and SCC, LCR, SCR, and CCR have been discontinued in Exchange Server 2010. Unlike in Exchange Server 2003/2007, Mailbox Resiliency will be included in both Exchange Standard Server and Exchange 2010 Enterprise Server to offer customers additional flexibility for licensing and deploying high-availability.

See the following table for an explanation of how these features have evolved across versions:

No, either CAL edition can be user with either server edition.

One server license is required for each running instance of Exchange Server 2010 – whether it is installed natively on a physical machine or on a virtual machine. Learn more about Exchange Server 2010 virtualization support.

Yes, the Exchange External connector license is unchanged in Exchange Server 2010 from the previous version.

You can purchase one External Connector license for each server that your non-employee users will connect to, rather than CALs for each of these users. Please see the Exchange product use rights (PUR) for additional information.

Customers may still license Exchange Server 2010 with either per-user or per-device CALs. If several users share a desktop and do not individually access the Exchange server from other locations (e.g. their home PCs) then they can be licensed with just one device CAL.

Yes, there are two. First, as in Exchange 2007, all Exchange Server 2010 users/devices must also have Windows Server 2008 CALs. Second, if customers want to use Information Rights Management in the Standard CAL or Information Protection & Compliance (IPC) in the Enterprise CAL, then they will need to license and install Windows Rights Management Server (RMS).

Yes. If customers want to use Mailbox Resiliency high-availability features as part of the Exchange 2010 Standard/Enterprise Server, then they will need to license and install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise license to support clustering. All other features other than Mailbox Resiliency of Exchange 2010 Enterprise Server only require Windows Server 2008 Standard license.

No, these features are only available in the Enterprise CAL or E-CAL Suite.

Yes – customers are charged annually for subscriptions to Forefront Security for Exchange Server and Forefront Online Security for Exchange to protect their users from viruses and spam (collectively “Services”). Customers may also choose to purchase the Exchange Enterprise CAL without Services if they do not need anti-virus and anti-SPAM protection.

If purchased in Open, the Exchange Enterprise CAL is available either with or without Services. If purchased in Select, customers have two options. They can buy the License (L-only) and get the CAL without Software Assurance or Services. Or if they want Software Assurance (L&SA), they must also buy the Services.

The Server licenses and CALs described above provide use rights for standalone Exchange Server 2010, but they can also be purchased as part of several suites along with other Microsoft products:

Please note that SBS is currently sold with the previous version of Exchange, Exchange Server 2007.

See the links above for pricing and more information about choosing to purchase Exchange Server license as part of a suite.

Exchange Online is licensed via a subscription model in which each user needs a User Subscription License (USL). Three types of user subscriptions are available: Exchange Online Kiosk, Exchange Online Plan 1, and Exchange Online Plan 2. These subscriptions can be purchased on their own or as part of Office 365 suite subscriptions that include SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Professional Plus.

The "User Subscriptions" section of the Exchange Online Service Description has a detailed comparison of the features available in each user subscription. A comparison table can also be found by viewing Exchange Online Pricing

No. Resource mailboxes, including Room Mailboxes and Equipment Mailboxes, are special mailbox types that are provided free of charge as part of your Exchange Online service. There is no limit to the number of conference room subscriptions.

No. Shared mailboxes do not require subscriptions. Shared mailboxes do not have login credentials, so they are only accessible by licensed users who have been granted delegate access (e.g. full mailbox permission, send as, or send on behalf of). Note: Kiosk users do not have delegate access, so they cannot access shared mailboxes.

Shared mailboxes have a smaller quota than regular mailboxes (5 GB), and do not include a personal archive or legal hold capabilities. If you need these features, then you can purchase an Exchange Online Plan 1 or Exchange Online Plan 2 subscription and assign it to the shared mailbox.

There is no limit to the number of shared mailboxes.

You must assign the shared mailbox an Exchange Online Plan 1 or Exchange Online Plan 2 subscription in order to enable the personal archive. A shared mailbox can’t be used to archive e-mail for an organization, except for those messages sent from the shared mailbox or received by the shared mailbox.

You must assign the shared mailbox an Exchange Online Plan 2 subscription in order to put it on legal hold.

Yes, these mailboxes require a subscription. The subscription type can be Exchange Online Kiosk, Exchange Online Plan 1, or Exchange Online Plan 2.

Yes, these mailboxes require a subscription. The subscription type must be Exchange Online Plan 1 or Exchange Online Plan 2 because Exchange Web Services access is disabled for Kiosk mailboxes.

No. Click here for information on Discovery mailboxes.

Public folders are not available in Exchange Online.

No. Using journaling, transport rules, or auto-forwarding rules to copy messages to an Exchange Online mailbox for the purposes of archiving is not permitted. To preserve messages for the purposes of archiving, you must put each user’s mailbox on legal hold, or journal the messages to an external archiving solution.

There are no limits on the duration of retention policy. You can set the retention duration based on your business needs.

The personal archive in Exchange Online Plan 2 provides unlimited storage of email data for one user. The personal archive has a default quota that is large enough to accommodate reasonable use, including the import of one user’s historical email. In the unlikely event that a user reaches this quota, a call to Office 365 support is required. See the Personal Archive section of the Exchange Online Service Description for details.

Microsoft does not provide tools for bulk loading of historical data into the personal archive. End-users or administrators can use Outlook to import items from PSTs into the personal archive. Additionally, if you are still planning your migration to Office 365, you may import the PST content to on-premises mailboxes prior to moving the mailboxes to Exchange Online. There are no associated fees for any of these methods of loading historical data.

You can export that user’s data to a PST file and store it on-premises, as described in this help article.

You can disable the user’s mailbox, as described in this help article. If you disable the mailbox, the data will continue to be stored in Exchange Online and you will need to maintain a valid user subscription for the mailbox.

If you have a hybrid deployment of Exchange Server and Exchange Online, you can migrate the mailbox back on-premises. Learn more about hybrid deployments here.

The Exchange Online Kiosk subscription is designed for users who require fewer messaging features because they do not have dedicated computers. The subscription provides 500 megabytes (MB) of mailbox space per user and web-based access through Microsoft Outlook Web App. Certain features, such as inbox rules and delegate access to other mailboxes, are disabled for Kiosk users. See the "User Subscriptions" section of the Exchange Online Service Description for details.

Yes, all Exchange Online subscriptions, including Exchange Online Kiosk, allow organization-wide capabilities such as multi-mailbox search, journaling, custom retention policies, and premier anti-spam and antivirus filtering via Forefront Online Protection for Exchange.

Kiosk users are protected by the same uptime SLA's and geo-redundancy protection as other Exchange Online mailboxes.

In order to place Kiosk users on legal hold, you must change their user subscriptions to Exchange Online Plan 2.

No. When a Kiosk subscription is assigned to a user, IM and presence integration in OWA is deactivated, even if the user has a Lync Online subscription. In addition, because Exchange Web Services access to Kiosk mailboxes is blocked, calendar-based presence updates in Lync will not occur for Kiosk workers, and e-mail OOF messages will not be displayed. Users who require these capabilities should be assigned an Exchange Online Plan 1 subscription.

Yes. In the Microsoft Online Services Portal, you can assign the user a new subscription and remove the old one. This will automatically update the user’s capabilities in Exchange Online. The procedure for purchasing new subscriptions and cancelling old ones varies; check your specific license agreement for details.

Yes. In the Microsoft Online Services Portal, you can assign the user a new subscription and remove the old one. This will automatically update the user’s capabilities in Exchange Online. For the smoothest transition, you should remove any legal holds from the user’s mailbox prior to assigning them the new subscription. Here is the downgrade behavior:

The procedure for purchasing new subscriptions and cancelling old ones varies; check your specific license agreement for details.

Yes. In the Microsoft Online Services Portal, you can assign the user a new subscription and remove the old one. This will automatically update the user’s capabilities in Exchange Online. For the smoothest transition, you should delete the user’s inbox rules and SMS notifications prior to assigning them the new subscription. Here is the downgrade behavior:

The procedure for purchasing new subscriptions and cancelling old ones varies; check your specific license agreement for details.

If you are installing an Exchange 2010 server solely to act as a bridge between the legacy Exchange Server 2003/2007 on-premises environment and Exchange Online, you can request a “Hybrid Edition” server key to license the server. See the Exchange Online Licensing page for details on the Hybrid Edition server key.

Yes, you can use your Hybrid Edition server key to license multiple servers, provided that the Hybrid Edition server is used within the guidelines described above.

No. Exchange Server 2010 includes native hybrid capabilities, so you can connect your Exchange 2010 organization to Exchange Online without a Hybrid Edition server. The Hybrid Edition is only for organizations running Exchange Server 2003 or Exchange Server 2007.

You can use PowerShell to enter the new product key, using the procedure described here.

You can point your MX record to Exchange Online in a hybrid deployment. In this scenario, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) provides anti-spam and antivirus filtering on inbound mail for the on-premises users, so these on-premises users require FOPE subscriptions.

To activate Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, please log on to the VLSC site and select “Online Services”. You will then be prompted to enter your Volume Licensing agreement number, contact information and Mail Server/Domain information for your organization. After you submit this information to Microsoft, you will receive an e-mail from Microsoft confirming that the service has been activated. Customer information required for activation includes:

The administrator can use the web-based support Incident tracking system to view and search a messaging knowledge base, create new support incidents, update existing support incidents, and track the current status of support incidents. The Support Escalation Path and Service Level Objective includes U.S. and international technical support contact information for Forefront Online Protection for Exchange and Exchange Hosted Archive services along with details about when you can expect a response to your Technical Support request, and is posted on the Resource tab of the Welcome pane in the Forefront Online Protection for Exchange Administration Center. Phone support should be used for emergency support needs.

The ways to contact technical support are:

Yes. Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server is included in the Exchange Server ECAL Suite.

Yes, Forefront Protection for Exchange Server is available as part of the Forefront Protection Suite or can be purchased on a stand-alone basis.

Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server is licensed through the Microsoft Online Services program on a per-user subscription model. This license includes all antivirus and anti-spam engine updates, signatures, and product upgrades during the license period. Customers will be able to license Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server through the following Microsoft volume licensing programs: