Microsoft ending free Developer accounts for VBA?

[mcomp72]

About a year ago, I signed up for a free Microsoft Office Developer account, because of a macro-enabled workbook I made for budgeting TV/video productions like commercials (www.truebudget.net). They granted me one, and then every 3 months I had to keep asking for it to be renewed. They kept doing it -- until the other day, that is. They've now declined to renew it again without giving much of a reason. I'm curious if the same has happened to any of you? I am wondering if they are no longer considering VBA development to be sufficient for having one? I know they are trying to get people to focus on office.js instead of VBA, but my understanding is that office.js cannot yet do all the things that VBA can do, so my plan is to stick with VBA until office.js catches up in functionality.

 

[MARK858]

Probably because VBA doesn't work on all the platforms that they expect you to develop an app for or more likely they consider the account to be inactive (when did you last use it?).

 

[mcomp72]

Probably because VBA doesn't work on all the platforms that they expect you to develop an app for or more likely they consider the account to be inactive (when did you last use it?).

I use it all the time. But apparently they can't track when people write VBA code inside one of the Office apps. I guess they can track when you are making Add-ins using the other tools, though. I've never used anything other than VBA, so I don't quite understand why they can track one thing but not another.

 

[xenou]

Its a little disturbing to hear that MS now tracks what kind of work you are doing with Office. I've been having a horrible time with my PC at home - there is so much tracking and reporting software my disk usage runs 100% for 15 minutes to a half hour every time I boot up windows (it was even worse before I found a few things to shut off).

I see now that the link you gave says a 3 month "renewable" free license. There is precious little details. What do they give you (or not give you anymore)? Just Office 365 for free instead of paying for it? At any rate, I can sympathize with not wanting or being able to pay for a subscription - I can't afford Office 365 either ... too expensive ... sigh. No new features for me.

 

[mcomp72]

Its a little disturbing to hear that MS now tracks what kind of work you are doing with Office. I've been having a horrible time with my PC at home - there is so much tracking and reporting software my disk usage runs 100% for 15 minutes to a half hour every time I boot up windows (it was even worse before I found a few things to shut off).

I see now that the link you gave says a 3 month "renewable" free license. There is precious little details. What do they give you (or not give you anymore)? Just Office 365 for free instead of paying for it? At any rate, I can sympathize with not wanting or being able to pay for a subscription - I can't afford Office 365 either ... too expensive ... sigh. No new features for me.

Yes, all I was getting with a 365 Developer account was a free subscription to Office. I think they give some other software for free, depending on what platforms you are developing for. Since I am only developing for Excel, I only asked for Office 365.

As far as MS tracking what you are doing -- I will admit I don't know exactly how that works, and I could be wrong about it. All I know is, every 3 months I would receive an email saying that they didn't see any activity in my developer account, and thus they were going to discontinue it. There's a link in your developer dashboard that says something like "Think we're missing your development activity? Let us know." So, I was just assuming they could somehow track it. But I don't know how it happens, and am not even sure it happens at all.