These instructions are applicable when you have been granted an MSDN Premium account and wish to activate the Azure benefit as part of the account.


1. To start, navigate to the MSDN Subscriptions Activation page at: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/add/default.aspx.

2. It brings up the sign in page where you select the live ID under which you have registered for the MSDN Premium account. In case you haven't associated your email with a live ID (for a non hotmail or live.com account), please follow the steps in 2a and 2b. Otherwise, skip to step 3.

2a. Azure requires a live ID, but it doesn’t have to be a live.com/Hotmail.com id – you can take any email ID and associate it as a live ID – so, when you click the link to activate your subscription, you can associate any of your email IDs as a live ID by clicking on the Sign up button on the page that comes up



2b. In the next page, you can associate your existing ID with Live and the next screen will allow you to activate your MSDN subscription.

Once you sign in, fill out the details (which should have arrived in the email):



3. After signing in, it will bring you to the MSDN Account page, where you will see a link for the Windows Azure Platform offer.




4. At this stage, it brings us back to the sign in page to select the live ID that we want to use with the Online services (Azure) customer portal.




5. Once we log in, we are asked for demographic information to setup the Azure / online services account on the customer portal.






6. Once all the fields are entered, we are presented with the Confirmation page indicating that the online services registration has completed.





7. At this point, we are presented with this page where we are presented with the charge for the Azure subscription.





8. Clicking on the Rate Plan link brings up this page that provides the details of the Azure offer under MSDN Premium. It indicates the first 750 hours of compute and 10GB of storage that is available for free on the left panel and it lists the charges for any overages on the right panel.




9. Next, we go through a series of screens where we enter our payment details and sign the service agreement.









10. After the order is reviewed and confirmed, we are presented with the final order confirmation.




11. At this point, we are asked to provide the Azure account details and administration email to manage our Azure account.





12. After 2 more summary screens, we are presented with the final confirmation indicating that we have signed up for Azure Services.







13. In a few minutes, we receive a confirmation email from Azure confirming that our Azure account is set up.




14. Following the above process, if we sign in to our Azure account, we see that our new account has been created and looking inside, we see that our services have been automatically ported to this new account.






15. One of the settings that you may be interested in turning on (in the online services customer portal) is the option to “opt out of auto renew” following the 8 month introductory special.







16. To view your bills and usage on an ongoing basis, click on the Home Tab of the online services customer portal and navigate into the “View my Bills” link. The following screens show you the usage and amount charged on the credit card. Remember, that you are only charged for overages beyond the free compute, storage and other limits as we saw in the previous window.