Vista Business Edition VLK's and reinstall on same box

[sentinal8473]

I have a question about Volume licence keys.

My company has an allocation of 50 Volume Licence keys, so once an install has been activated that count is deducted from our allocation, so we now have 49 left.

If for some reason the pc needs to be reinstalled, does this take another licence or will Microsoft know that it is the same pc?

Any advice will be grateful y received

Cheers

Sentinal

[graymadder]

From my understanding of the VLK 2.0 is what you are calling VLK's is actually MAK's (multiple activation key) and I believe everytime you use them it counts towards your total count. I think VLK customers can request more MAK's. Check with your VLS agreement it should give you that information.

[cluberti]

As far as I'm aware, there's no limit on the number of times you can request your MAK availability count extended to account for reinstalls - but that's probably theoretical. It'd be better, once you've got machines activated and working properly, to image them and store those images in a safe place (in MULTIPLE safe places) - just in case you can't get it extended in the future, for whatever reason.

[fizban2]

I have a question about Volume licence keys.

My company has an allocation of 50 Volume Licence keys, so once an install has been activated that count is deducted from our allocation, so we now have 49 left.

If for some reason the pc needs to be reinstalled, does this take another licence or will Microsoft know that it is the same pc?

Any advice will be grateful y received

Cheers

Sentinal

each time you install vista, weither it be a reinstall or on a new machine, it will count against your MAK key

[LeveL]

Store the image?

That won't solve it, because you have to re-activate every 6 months or

something don't you? So if you recover an image 7 months later it won't

be activated.

I tried that trick with Vista when it was in its 30 day grace period, you can't

just restore it and expect it to give you the same amount of days/months left.

[graymadder]

Store the image?

That won't solve it, because you have to re-activate every 6 months or

something don't you? So if you recover an image 7 months later it won't

be activated.

I tried that trick with Vista when it was in its 30 day grace period, you can't

just restore it and expect it to give you the same amount of days/months left.

I think you are confusing KMS with MAK. Once you have activated a pc with a MAK you don't have to reactivate it. KMS is different. You have (only tested with Ent Edition) a 30 day grace period which can be reset 3 times giving you a total of 120 day grace period. slmgr.vbs handles this, I believe the command is slmgr.vbs -rearm which is ran from the sys32 dir.

I think what cluberti may be talking about is taking an image of the pc through backup and restore centerand this would be on a per maching basis. But if you use WDS to take the image then you must run sysprep in order to properly image the pc and then you would have to reactivate the machine using up another MAK.

At least this is my understanding.

Edited April 7, 2007 by graymadder

[LeveL]

I think you are confusing KMS with MAK.

Yeah I must be, sorry.

slmgr.vbs -rearm

Eeeeek, naughty! But nice Dunno if the mods will see it that way though, lol.

But if you use WDS to take the image then you must run sysprep in order to properly image the pc and then you would have to reactivate the machine using up another MAK.

At least this is my understanding.

So it doesn't matter how you go about it, you're always going to waste a MAK activation?

I don't get why people put up with this from Microsoft. Windows Vista should cost $40 not $400.

The worst thing is, its the paying customers who get messed about the most with stuff like this.

Edited April 7, 2007 by LeveL

[gamehead200]

slmgr.vbs -rearm

Eeeeek, naughty! But nice Dunno if the mods will see it that way though, lol.

It's perfectly legal!

[LeveL]

slmgr.vbs -rearm

Eeeeek, naughty! But nice Dunno if the mods will see it that way though, lol.

It's perfectly legal!

OK fair enough but still, its a bit naughty? lol, I am sure Microsoft

would rather people did not know this sort of thing, but nevermind,

we do know it.

Edited April 7, 2007 by LeveL

[sentinal8473]

it does seem very unfair that a reinstall deducts from the total allocated. The fact that the computer will generate the same id key from the hardware inside, ms will know that it is the same box....that really is not fair!!!

[graymadder]

it does seem very unfair that a reinstall deducts from the total allocated. The fact that the computer will generate the same id key from the hardware inside, ms will know that it is the same box....that really is not fair!!!

VLK Cutomers can request more MAK's. My org started out with 250. Once we burn through those we can request more, even before we use all of them we can get more. MAK's are one key that can be activated x number of times. Once they have all been activated that key becomes dead and you will get a new one. This is MS way of dealing with piracy. The VLK keys were good for infinite amount of uses so if someone got a hold of VLK they had all the benefits, now the MAK's will expire after x number of uses. MAK is one of the two ways of activation in VLK 2.0. KMS is the other method.

Edited April 7, 2007 by graymadder

[sentinal8473]

I see your point gtaymadder, its unfair that a reinstall will deduct from the allocation, as a reinstall is not an additional pc!!!

[cluberti]

That won't solve it, because you have to re-activate every 6 months or

something don't you? So if you recover an image 7 months later it won't

be activated.

Well, it takes 3 iterations of a system with a specific product key not checking in (about 18 months) before a key goes "inactive" and may be able to be re-used, but this is still not true in your case, as this only affects retail and retail OEM keys. Graymadder is correct - you can request more keys against a MAK license, but you will likely get a different key with the requested # of activations.

And yes, I was stating that an image of the machine, via any imaging software (I'd say use the built-in ImageX technology, but you can use whatever you'd like) can get around some of these sorts of things.

[pmshah]

"The worst thing is, its the paying customers who get messed about the most with stuff like this."

You are learning fast !!!!

Your best bet is to first do an install with all the required software & activate it.

Then boot with something like Acronis true image or Paragon Partition manager & create an image file to a dvd. Mark it properly with the id of the specific machine & store it safely.

Repeat for each machine.

This way you got all your machines covered. If you are gigalan you can create these images across the lan & save them on the server for quick fast access without the need to handle dvd media.

Edited April 26, 2007 by pmshah