

Everyone, including non-subscribers, can view Subscriber Downloads, but only active subscribers can download products and keys. If you are not signed in, you'll be prompted to sign in when you attempt to download a product or view product keys. You must be signed in to your Microsoft account that is associated with your subscription in order to download products on Subscriber Downloads. As it says on the Using Subscriber Downloads help page: You cannot download software from MSDN Subscriber Downloads without a Microsoft account associated with a valid subscription. You can compare the various editions here: SQL Server Developer contains all the features of SQL Server Enterprise Edition, just on different licensing terms.

If you choose Evaluation, you are installing a time-limited trial of Enterprise Edition, with different licensing terms. No product key is required for this option, because one is provided for you. If you choose the pre-populated product key, you are installing Developer Edition (not a trial) under the MSDN Subscriber licence terms.

During installation, you are presented with a screen like: I assume this means that a 28 day trial is initiated after download?
