Phase 1: Tracking down the TFS license key.

Today I had intentions of trying to track down our TFS 2008 License key. This was a big problem for us last time so I started with a "Escalation Specialist" from the "NACS Response Management Team-MSDN".

After dialing the number they gave me, I ended up talking to City Gold and Smith Barney. Thinking that was wrong, I gave the MSDN number I have (800-759-5474) a call and after a transfer was able to talk to someone from the "Activation Team."

The Activation Team member said to get the License Key I just needed to look on the back of the CD. We don't actually receive any media as we installed the trial edition (per Brian Harry's suggestion). So then he directed me to have our procurement department talk to the reseller. We're a company of 33,000 people so you can imagine how hard it is to find the procurement department.

From what he said, if the reseller does not know the key (which they didn't with TFS 2005) then we need to have our procurement tell our reseller to contact their local distributor. At this point I lost interest in the conversation and offered my thanks for his time.

So I'm back trying to find our procurement department. Once the reseller's distributor tells the reseller that they don’t have the key, our procurement department will most likely direct me back to the vendor at which point I'll start over again with the "Escalation Specialist".