@pmoncho said in The Hidden Cost of Licensing Windows Server - Activation:

@scottalanmiller said in The Hidden Cost of Licensing Windows Server - Activation:

Just looking at this with a customer that just put in a new Windows 2019 server. The machine was purchased with a volume license agreement for Server 2019 Standard. Everything should be super easy, in theory. Problem is, license key from the volume license center doesn't work. We spend a bit of time trying to get this to apply, but no luck.

I have run into a similar situation this morning and not being able activate the VLSC liscense.

Before I decided to call MS and getting frustrated, I was able to activate from an elevated command line.
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk <product key>

Throwing this out here in case someone comes along this post at a later time.

I've heard that that often works. We had tried that in our case and it had failed.

@hobbit666 said in Windows 10 Pro Volume License (KMS) to OEM/BIOS:

Yeah the upgrade keys were full upgrade not vl keys.

I think they"expired" because we removed our Kms server a while ago.

Any way it all works now 😁

Well - the expire notice is, as you said, because the VLMK ISO that was used to install these machines making them KMS/MAK dependant, can't contact a KMS server. You can fix this by replacing the KMS key with a MAK key. Then the machine will activate directly against MS and you'll be golden.

I had to do this for a Win7 machine I moved off my main network and onto a private network that only had direct internet access - i.e. it could no longer reach my KMS server.

Dec 2019 I'm going to have to move another Win7 machine to a totally isolated network. I'm guessing I'm going to need to get it to an OEM Key, activate against MS, then it should be fine forever being offline.

@Himura1 said in Windows 10 volume licensing questions:

wow, didn't except so many discussions!

That's how we role.

FYI - to get into a Volume License agreement with Microsoft, you must purchase 5 licenses to start. Any 5. For example 5 Windows desktops Software Assurance licenses.

The cheapest option that I am currently aware of is 4 Windows Server CALs and a single Windows Desktop upgrade or SA.

@Dashrender said:

I've never see a screen like that in my VLSC console.

It's under Administration.

@NetworkNerd said:

How do they know you are using the one volume license for imaging and not re-using it over and over illegally?

They don't, but as that is generally how it is used, it's not a flag.