Posted on May 11th, 2010 in
Review
This is not lengthy talk on what good can Volume Activation 2 do to a corporation. More info about VA2 is hosted here on official Microsoft website.
I’ll show you what in fact is Windows KMS activation and how it actually works in life.
What is Key Management Service (KMS)?
KMS is a lightweight service that does not require a dedicated system and can easily be co-hosted on a system that provides other services. With KMS, you can complete activations on your local network, eliminating the need for individual computers to connect to Microsoft for product activation.
In short, KMS is a service, hosted on a Windows volume client or server, to provide unlimited activations for its client systems, client or server products.
KMS activation is what Microsoft meant to be used only within corporate infrastructure, so it has strict prerequisites. A certain number of clients must exist before KMS activation server can function.
KMS server will record every request from its clients and count it against the predefined threshold. That means, none of the clients will be activated before the activation server receives enough requests.
For instance, if you want to activate your local servers, running Windows Server 2008, or R2, regardless of edition, you’ll need five of them before any can be activated.
You’re supposed to use command to set clients’ activation server address, and activate the client. KMS server will receive this activation request if settings right, and record it as one count. For now your first server isn’t activated, which will just prompt you there are insufficient clients. Repeat the action on the other three, KMS server will count four now, while the servers are still not activated.
Now when you set up the fifth server, it sends its request to KMS server, for which the counts equals the threshold, and it’ll be able to activate the clients right away, including the first four, but that will need a moment, as KMS clients will automatically re-send its activation request at the set interval until they get activated, your other four servers will be activated when they next send their activation requests.
If you want to activate volume Windows clients, like Windows Vista Business, or Windows 7 Enterprise, you’ll need 25 systems before KMS server will unleash its magic.
If you have deployed Microsoft Office 2010 products, including Project 2010 and Visio 2010, you’ll need 5 systems running these.
Initially with the introduction of VA2, if the activation request is sent from a virtual machine, that won’t be counted, even although they can be activated after the KMS server starts to function. After Windows Vista SP1, Microsoft modified its policy to allow virtual machine to be counted as valid client to ease the deployment of KMS activation.
For KMS servers, a specific number of counts is required before they start to function. However, if a client couldn’t connect to the activation server for 30 days, the server will consider this client offline and deplete one activation count. Activation counts may drop below the required threshold when a lot of clients undergo maintenance.
So to not be interrupted in servicing, they have a count buffer of 25, which means activation counts will max at 50, twice the threshold for it to function wholly. This doesn’t mean only 50 clients can be activated. Any number of clients can be activated, but only 50 latest will be recorded as activation counts, serving as some kind of fail-safe.
Continue reading Volume Activation 2: KMS Activation