Major Microsoft 365 Developer Program Changes - What are your options?

With the massive, breaking changes to the M365 Developer Program (also known as the M365 Dev Program) , announced in January, many learners are no longer able to access the platform to get familiar with the technology. Now, anyone who needs to renew or sign up to the Dev Program must have a Visual Studio Enterprise Subsription!

In this video, I walk through the options available to learners who are taking Microsoft 365 or Intune courses.

With the options essentially coming down to:
1) Buy a license
2) Get a very limited time trial
It's a very disappointing turn for the Microsoft Learn community.

This video show you how to sign up to an Intune trial, via the Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 products. When signing up to a trial, always review the terms and conditions, including the recurring billing setting. Trials must manually set to disable recurring billing, or you will be charged once the trial ends.

0:00 What's changed?
1:30 Options
3:00 Buy M365 Business Premium
5:40 Use a Trial Subscription
9:02 Oops
11:00 Try again!
13:55 Disable Recurring Billing
16:16 Extend your trial?

[CaratacusAD]

So, this is annoying and very short-sighted. The test tenant came with a ton of user data pre-loaded etc... and enabled full Enterprise E5 testing for things like teams. You can't do that with a single non-enterprise account. I was thinking of getting into developing Teams apps and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do this now. Now I have to sign up for a real tenant with no data to test my app with and then pay for add on licenses if I want to test advanced features like PSTN voice. This seems like a return to the old days of Microsoft. They have a lot to learn from Google on the way they treat learners and enabling access to free resources. Thanks for the video

[andresforerocoral]

Hi Dean, does the business basic license come with power apps access? Thanks.

[helaruhelamithkaviraj]

I downloaded the office with The Developer account in 2023. But the developer account has been disabled. Now the Microsoft office says your account (developer) is expired. Can I renewal it?

[alexandremotquin]

Thanks Dean, I was considering doing this to replace the developer program . I already did it a long time ago when it was 3 month Trial period without auto-renewal .

Very useful to have the explanation on how to cancel the auto-renewal .

[lookman_]

Great video, sad news. What if we buy ms 365 business Basic and intune or entra id seperatly? I want to build webparts with a azure functions backend and secure it with entra id.

[Kevin]

Hello,
Can we know when our tenant will be expired if we are concerned about it ? Can we see an expiring date somewhere ?

[goofyguga]

I have a Visual Studio Subscription, but when I try to join developer 365, I get a message that I don't qualify for a sandbox subscription. If anyone knows a way around this issue, I would appreciate it!

[minarulhoque]

Sir, my Microsoft 365 developer account is deactivated, now how can I active it? Please tell me....😢😢😢😢😢

[Den-vyju]

Thanks, I noticed that I can't create a new subscription.

What about the existing one? It still works for me and I just need to test some tasks before I implement them.

[heyyo-mz]

what happens to the existing trial plans? mine is expiring in a month. will i get a free extension?

[HeyRadu]

Hi Dean, excellent video at the right time, thank you!

Yes, I think all of us kind of understand why Microsoft decided to drastically limit the Dev program, I would add that it was also possible to take full advantage of the whole Office 365 suite (Word, Outlook, Excel, Teams), without even enrolling your own personal device(s) or paying anything, all in the name of ...just testing ^^

On the other hand, having the ability to test various Microsoft technologies, specifically Intune, just become more serious, because now its cost money, so no time to fool around.

Maybe I'm wrong but with this move, probably Microsoft expects that the market will be more competitive for technical people, thus making it harder for most of us to succeed in this environment.

[thecrazyindian_com]

Can understand why they're trying to go down this path and stop the abuse of bots / junk email etc... but surely there's a better way for those who want to use the service genuinly.

Any idea if those who have a Dev subscription will loose theirs?

[space-between]

this is what I learned last week. Damned shit. I want to sell the VIVA Framework, but I have now no opportunity to build a showcase for customers. So I have no chance for testing an administration.

[samuelfoisy]

I'm glad that I already have my dev environment set up, it seems like existing accounts are not at risk of removal at the moment. At least, according to a response from Microsoft in the comment of the article. Good thing because I'm currently taking my certifications and need that for it since I only have M365 Standard for my own tenant.

[federicoo_]

The only free option working. Thanks Dean!!

[Piboblow]

Hopefully, this Dude knows what he try to say .

[JoseSetien]

"Microsoft are very good at allowing you to spend money". 🤣🤣🤣

[jay_wright_thats_right]

The Developer Program was NOT for learners to do just anything. It's obvious you never read the fine print. This is probably the reason why they got rid of the program.