Comment Feed for Volume Activation changes in Windows 7 (Media on TechNet Edge)

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

thro — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:23:56 GMT

you already either pay a subscription for windows (via volume licensing) or re-buy licenses every time you upgrade hardware. sure you need to install a license activation service somewhere, but it will help keep track of your licenses for true-up time anyway...

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Malcolm McCaffery — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 17:09:10 GMT

One reason might be because XP was one of the most widely pirated pieces of software, as the simple volume activation in windows XP was easily taken advantage of.

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Rob Hardman — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:44:17 GMT

I think the KMS host could be improved by adding a polished GUI. While some of us will appreciate command (pipe)lines, not everyone does, and a GUI would serve to reduce complexity both to learn and deploy KMS, particularly when multiple products may be hosted.

Coming from a smaller shop, n-counts of 25 could prove troublesome for SMEs but this sector of the market tends to stomach activation hoops more readily than the enterprise (does anyone remember loading CALs from floppy disks for SBS2000?) :)

I can honestly say that KMS has made my job easier - not having to dig out (or indeed entrust others with) a VLK 1.0 makes portions of the job run a lot smoother. On the MAK side, I think the VAMT tool is seriously underrated, but again, it needs a little more fit and finish (particularly in waiting for jobs to complete) before it can really shine.

My first post on Edge, please be gentle :P

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

peterwillcn — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 04:09:38 GMT

oh/....y2+a1xy+a3y=x3+a2x2+a4x+a6

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Chris Parker — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:48:35 GMT

My problem with VA 2.0 was the ridiculous requirement you must attempt to activate(and fail) for 25 unique copies of Windows before the KMS server would work correctly and validate. What the heck is that all about? Not everyone has massive deployments of Windows. Some are smaller gold partners that want to use their licenses freely ya know and the MAK's we get simply don't cover the number we should have access to. So yeah, VA 2.0/3.0 is still BS unless they have corrected this massive effort of getting a KMS working. MS is offloading their piracy prevention costs by making their customers and partners jump through hoops of fire. Awesome.

Re: Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

ping2low — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:55:35 GMT

by far the best analogy i can relate to...still sux and doesn't make it right though ;(

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

kasbas — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:29:28 GMT

I think it is great that we now buy the OS and Office, and then need to have a server, which means hardware and Server OS just to use it. Not to mention more server admin time tied up when they could be working on other projects. We did not go to Vista partly because of this. This type of trust to organziations that purchase huge amounts of software from them will surely help us look at open source more as an alternative.

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Ram Rathnam — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:06:34 GMT

The vanity URL http://www.technet.com/volumeactivation should direct to the refreshed Windows 7 pages in the next couple of days. If you are interested in accessing the content use this direct URL to TechLibrary http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd996588.aspx

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Ram Rathnam — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:03:15 GMT

The Volum License Keys (VLK) that was issued to customers with Microsoft Volume Licensing (VL) were easy to compormise. Those compromised VLKs now attributes to ~80% of all validation failures that we see for Windows XP. KMS addresses the security concerns by converting the activation into a deligated activation for those VL customers.

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Ram Rathnam — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:54:32 GMT

There is no relationship between the KMS keys for Office 2010 key and KMS keys for Windows 7 . When these keys are installed on the KMS host, it uses all those keys in respondng to the activation requests.

In other words, in order for a single KMS host to activate both Windows 7 and Office 2010 one does need to install both the keys on the KMS host.

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Harold — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:31:04 GMT

I can't get the sound to work on my computer, but I am interested in knowing what the licensing model is

going to be for Windows 7. Is there a written document that discusses it? The link to technet activation didn't

have anything that I could see.

Re: Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Ronald Lewis — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:25:02 GMT

I thought that the server recognized you board or hard drive so if something happened you can format again and not have any problem re-activating it. Now if you have to build a new computer I see why you need to call India and get it activated over the phone but I guess this only applies to big business not the solo user keys.

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

ChrisLuther — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 21:22:25 GMT

@CorvallisITSpec "I do agree that those of us who are legal are having to put up with the expense of having to protect against illegal activations"

How is that any different from your car insurance being higher to cover potentially uninsured drivers?

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

CorvallisITSpec — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:52:26 GMT

IMO this is M$ getting a handle on exactly how many license are being used as opposed to purchased. By having the kms server limit the activations to the number owned, as opposed to the current system where there is no central count of the deployed licenses. I do agree that those of us who are legal are having to put up with the expense of having to protect against illegal activations.

Re: Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Dustin Cook — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:03:32 GMT

@juswannaplay - Many businesses already budget for subscription-like costs for software (such as Software Assurance). This has very little to do with consumers who are still offered retail upgrades that do not require volume activation. I should note that I fail to see how the changes to volume activation in any way point toward a future of subscription-based software. That's not to say I like product activation at all, as it makes me feel like Microsoft is treating us as intellectual property infringers as opposed to paying customers with enterprise agreements.

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

juswannaplay — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:49:09 GMT

This is just one step closer to subscription based software and operating system usage which will end up costing the consumer more per year of useful life. It's too bad they can't realize that once you've paid for something, you should not have to pay again and again.

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

nytebyte — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:07:48 GMT

Thumbs down to Microsoft for making Windows Vista and Windows 7 unnecessarily complicated. Why not just use the VLK1 model in XP? It worked well and didn't cause extra administration headaches for IT staff. This is one of the primary reasons we never moved to Vista at my company.

Re: Volume Activation changes in Windows 7

Adam Leinss — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:01:58 GMT

So if you have both an Office 2010 key and a Windows 7 key and install both, does the KMS take the last key and just know to activate both products or are both keys embedded within the KMS itself?