I use VB 6 Enterprise to do stand alone programming, and, more importantly, to create .exe and .dll that use Excel, or some other Office component.

Since the proper way to install Office is to only have a single Office in each installed OS, it can get rather expensive getting a license for each OS.

Each Office can be installed on both a destop and a notebook, so if the desktop and notebook use a different OS that helps.

Last week, I had a lengthy discussion with folkes in the MSDN Subscription group. They indicated that getting an MSDN OS Subscription would enable me to install as many OS as I wished.

Sounded good, too good!

But yesterday, I learned that there are severe restrictions on how each OS can be used.

My goal is to develop in my main OS, right now Windows 2000 with Office 2003, and Windows Vista with Office 2007. Then boot to the systems that have Office 97, Office 2000 and Office XP for testing/tweaking the VB 6 code.

I will be building a desktop to use Windows XP (I purchased a retail version before MSFT stopped sales). I would also like to add, perhaps, additional Win XP to the desktop, and, Vista and Windows 7. I may eventually add Windows 7 to the Vista notebook.

What's the most cost effective way to get the needed Windows licenses?