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chriswu11111
Contributor
Contributor

Microsoft Office activation and View refresh

Hi Guys,

For those of you that do office deployments on your view systems can anyone explain to me please how you got the activation working on office with view?

I've tried to create an image with office already activated and then after that i create linked clones.

It is configured to refresh on logoff.

After all the above is done when a person logs in they need to activate!!! which i don't get the office activation has already been completed on the master copy.


Does anyone have any ideas with this or how they set it up?

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Few things to try using the "ospp.exe" tool from within the Office install path. All from the command prompt:

1) cscript ospp.exe /act  - This will attempt to activate Office. If this succeeds, then you are most likely polling the wrong KMS server for automatic activation which leads into #2.
2)  cscript ospp.exe /sethst:<servername>.  If your port is non-standard (not 1688) use the /setprt:<port#> option also. Then try with the /act option.
2b) I'd recommend running ospp with the sethst option in your master image as that will set the KMS host for Office in your image.

Side question - are physical installs of Office 2010 working?

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank you for these suggestions.  I will try them right away.

Just to confirm, I am running the commands on my image where Office 2010 is installed, correct?

Side question answer - Yes, physical installs of Office 2010 are working without issue.

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Probably try it from your linked-clone first. If #2 works, then run those commands, minus activation, in your image and push an update to your pool.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Ok so here are the results.

1) cscript ospp.exe /act produced this result:

  pastedImage_0.png

2) cscript ospp.exe /sethst:<servername>:

pastedImage_1.png

Then try with the /act option (same result as before).

pastedImage_2.png

So, even though the results are the same before and after running the /sethst command, should I proceed with running that on my image and then recompose?

Also, just to confirm we are using Instant Clones and not Linked Clones.

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

This doesn't seem to be an issue with your instant clone, this looks like an issue with the KMS service (or at least connectivity to the service). Might want to check firewall port connectivity between systems on your clone subnet and the KMS server. Make sure TCP 1688 is open in both the Windows firewall on the KMS and on the network the KMS server is on.

Also verify that the Office Volume Licensing Pack is installed on your Office KMS system, but since other activations are working, I don't believe this is the case.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Since Office 2010 activation is working on physical devices (which would use the same KMS server as the virtual desktop), it doesn't seem like it would be anything to do with the KMS server...???

I did confirm that TCP 1688 is open in the Windows firewall on the KMS server.  Will check with the our network person on the other suggestions below.

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

On the KMS server in the event logs, are you able to see the KMS request come in?

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Good question....assuming I am looking at the Key Management Service Log, I do not see any entries for my virtual desktops...interesting.

Also, on my image I just ran the cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus from the office14 directory and I see this.  Should this be there on the image?

pastedImage_0.png

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

That is the correct log to be looking at.

As for your image, that means that your master cannot get to the KMS server either. Try installing a telnet client in your master and attempting to telnet to 1688 on your KMS server.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

So...doing the whole Telnet exercise helped me to discover that my image was not resolving my KMS server to the correct IP Address.  For some reason I had hardcoded our KMS server name/IP Address in the hosts file on the image (not sure why I had done this). Normally this wouldn't be a problem however back in August we changed the IP Address of that server due to an upgrade to our DCs. That particular server was previously a DC but was demoted when new DCs were built on 2016. Now the only reason that server exists is for activating Office 2010 via KMS.

After making the change I recomposed my desktops and now an interesting thing happens. When I first open an Office product and look at licensing, it says the "product activation required" and running the cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus command I see the below:

pastedImage_0.png

However, if I close the application (Word, Excel, etc.) and then reopen it, it is then activated.  If I run the ospp.vbs /dstatus command after it has been reopened, the status now says LICENSED with remaining grace be 180 days; see below.

pastedImage_1.png

Its like there is a delay...any idea why this would be? 

Thank you SO much for all of your help with this issue!

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sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

Waiting a minute or so doesn't make a difference? I See this in later versions, but I've  never questioned it, it initially doesn't see the activation but then it switches to activated after recognizing the user is logged in. I've never had to restart it to get it to work though.

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
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Progress! Awesome.

Only thing I could think of is potentially the Software Protection Service is configured to a delayed or manual start where it should be automatic. Otherwise, I am not sure why there is a delay.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Do you mean the Software Protection Service on the image/virtual desktop?

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mchadwick19
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Yes

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Currently set to manual. :smileyplain:

pastedImage_0.png

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mchadwick19
Hot Shot
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Flip that to Auto or Auto Delayed. If it's manual, the service doesn't get started until an activation attempt happens when the app is launched, which might cause the delay. If it's running before the activation goes out, you should get the activation immediately.

VDI Engineer VCP-DCV, VCP7-DTM, VCAP7-DTM Design
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RachelW
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

So I set the service to Automatic start on the image and republished my desktops.  I then logged into the new desktop but unfortunately, the service did not start even after waiting several minutes.

I then decided to start the service on the desktop and opened Word but it was still not activated until closing and reopening it.

Maybe it is not something I need to worry about it.

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