Activation Issue

[Super6VCA]

We have a Win 10 pool of instant clones that has the master image working just fine and is activated.  Once i push out the image all desktops in the pool go to NOT ACTIVATED.  can anyone shed some light on what's going on?  We have a KMS server but only use it for Office.  the Windows key used is an MAK key so not sure why the activation error.  Any Thoughts??

Thanks

[nburton935 · Accepted solution]

MAK is not supported. You will need to contact your Microsoft rep to get a KMS key.

Activating Windows on Instant Clones and View Composer Linked Clones

[sjesse]

KMS is the best option for desktops, but I'm pretty sure the reason its not activated is this

VMware Knowledge Base

it rearms the activation in customization. What we used to do is run a startup script to manually activate desktops when they started using the slmgr.vbs command.

[Super6VCA]

Are you referring to the slmgr /ipk then slmgr /ato commands?

[sjesse]

Yes, this is the script we used to do, we placed it in a batch file, and used group policy to make it logon script

@echo "Starting Desktop Setup...Please wait..."

@cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ato > C:\Utilities\runonce.log

@echo "Finished Desktop Setup"

The only other thing you may need to do is set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\UserOperations to 1 . This lets non administrative users activate windows. We had to stop this though we were chewing through MAK keys like crazy, we have a requirement to delete desktops on logoff.

[mbud01]

And you can get the KMS keys right here:

KMS client setup keys | Microsoft Docs​

i think this is the older one..

Appendix A: KMS Client Setup Keys | Microsoft Docs

[Super6VCA]

Are you using instant clones?  We have approx 100 instant clone desktops that get accessed  10 times a day for each.  So my guess is we will run through them as well.  What is the solution for users that have instant clones.  WE are in a hospital setting and the nurses and docs log in for 10 minutes then lease.  Do that multiple times a day.  i was under teh impression that KMS was the way to do it.  Any other thoughts??

[sjesse]

yeah MAK key doesn't seem viable, and thats why VMware doesn't really support it, its only a a very low volume is it even worth trying. Setting up a KMS server isn't that hard its in the links provided before, you get the kms key from your volume licensing account on microsoft and install that on a windows server. Then you can either manually specify the kms server in the parent image, use dns, or active directory based activation. If you want to use DNS, make sure updates to that key are restricted, we had an issue where someone didn't know what they were doing and setup another kms key and overwrote that dns record. I manually specify the kms in the parent image to prevent any issues. I also sugget install the vamt tool

Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) Technical Reference (Windows 10) | Microsoft Docs

It can help to see what keys are installed on the server and you can manually activate desktops from there if you had to.

[Super6VCA]

I already have a KMS server installed and running.  Things were working fine for about a week with my instant clone pools, then all of the sudden they stopped activating the Instant clones.  This is a big headache if you ask me.  As it stands now all my VDI instant clones all say Activate windows.  And even thought we are covered by licensing, nobody wants to see that message.  So are you running the startup script for activation??  

[sjesse]

Not anymore, that was just when we tried using MAK keys prior to setting up the kms server. We are using windows  7 and windows 10 desktops with our KMS server and I probably go through a few hundred a day. All I do is make sure the correct gvlk key is installed in the parent image, and then run these to commands

slmgr.vbs /skms <value>:<port>
slmgr.vbs /ato

when I'm done with the parent. You can also run

slmgr.vbs /dlv to check the status before you push the new image. I manually set the kms server to prevent problems I've had with dns based activation. If the _VLMCS key that specifies the kms server was updated  or removed for some reason this could be the reason for your issues.

[Super6VCA]

Thanks for the info.  What i have setup is to load the master image then run slmgr.vbs /ipk <product key> then run slmgr.vbs /ato.  That successfully activates the master with that key.  Then i have to setup a startup task on the master to run at startup.      slmgr.vbs /ato  So far that has seemed to work for me.  It took some playing around but with some help it's all good.  Thanks again for the info!!