Office 2010 activation servers changed to Akamai Technologies (example: 23.6.186.29)

Hi

does anyone know why Microsoft has changed it's activation servers from its own to servers from Akamai Technologies (example: 23.6.186.29)  ?

my organization does not provide access to the internet on workstations so we need to know the exact ip addresses of activation servers when installing office 2010.

this seems to have changed and it is difficult for us to know all ip addresses from a third party entity used my Microsoft for office 2010 activation.

thanks

June 30th, 2015 10:10am

Hi,

The usage of Akamai technology is to optimize your activation geographically to save your network resource and time.

If your Office 2010 is volume license, you can use >Plan MAK independent activation of Office 2010< described in this article to activate those work stations in your environment. 

Let me know if you need further assistant on this, thank you.

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July 6th, 2015 1:38am

hi again

thanks for your reply.

I went through the article you sent me about independent MAK activation. There are a few reasons why our model breaks after Microsoft decides to use the geographically optimized activation. To understand why I will lay out our architecture based on the old activation model:

I built a win7 32 bit image for our laptops/desktops with office 2010; when the image deploys, office 2010 installs by itself, then at some point a batch file fires this command

start /wait cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\ospp.vbs" /act

the MAK key is already in the office 2010 installation kit in the config.xml file

when the command is executed, in the past, the computer would talk directly with Microsoft's servers on the internet and the activation would be successful.

another aspect of our infrastructure is that we have 2 types of locations: the major offices without internet access and some brach offices with internet access;

the activation model worked well in the past for the branch offices

it also worked for the major offices because knowing the exact ip addresses of Microsoft's servers we opened our corporate firewall to allow access. We all know, the firewall is a useful thing for security reasons. If we don't know the exact ip anymore we would need to open the firewall for the whole internet which renders the firewall and the whole security concept futile.

now, back to your suggestion: independent activation or proxy activation using the VAMT tool;

this would work but only manually; the whole idea of an image to be deployed on laptops/desktops is to make it as much automatic as possible with the least manual intervention required.

is there a proxy activation mechanism, in other words to designate a server of our own to talk to Microsoft or Akamai automatically when polled by incoming requests from computers for office 2010 activations ?

also, is the a way to maintain the automation for the branch offices ? in other words, if the answer to the question above is yes, then wouldn't that break the activation process for the branch offices which are on the internet and whose computers would try to get into the corporate network to talk to the proxy activation server ? in other words is there a way to avoid having to create different images just for the reason of different office 2010 activation mechanisms ?

thanks

July 7th, 2015 9:53am

Hi,

I'm not sure if I understood you question right. I will try to answer your question. If I didn't get what you meant, please feel free to correct me:

1. If this changing to Akamai will affect your branch activation the way it is now?

Per my understanding, this changing to Akamai wont affect your activation of your branch office if its an internet accessible environment. You can continue using the activation method you are using now.

2. If you still want to use MAK activation and without direct internet access, Phone activation is the only way to do this.

However, you can switch to KMS activation. By this way you can keep the major offices from accessing internet and automate the activation process.

Note: Using KMS activation, you will still need to give KMS host accessing to internet, other clients machine talk to KMS host instead of Microsoft servers.

For KMS activation, you can refer to

               Plan KMS activation of Office 2010

               Customer Hosted Volume Activation Guide

Let me know if above information suits your needs. Thank you.


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July 8th, 2015 2:28am

Hi,

I'm not sure if I understood you question right. I will try to answer your question. If I didn't get what you meant, please feel free to correct me:

1. If this changing to Akamai will affect your branch activation the way it is now?

Per my understanding, this changing to Akamai wont affect your activation of your branch office if its an internet accessible environment. You can continue using the activation method you are using now.

2. If you still want to use MAK activation and without direct internet access, Phone activation is the only way to do this.

However, you can switch to KMS activation. By this way you can keep the major offices from accessing internet and automate the activation process.

Note:

  • Using KMS activation, you will still need to give KMS host accessing to internet, other clients machine talk to KMS host instead of Microsoft servers 

  • For KMS activation, you can refer to

               Plan KMS activation of Office 2010

               Customer Hosted Volume Activation Guide

  • After KMS host setup, follow the steps in this article to finish the activation.

Let me know if above information suits your needs. Thank you.


July 8th, 2015 6:26am

test

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July 9th, 2015 9:13am


hi

we have a MAK type key.


this article tell me that I can use our MAK key with VAMT in the major offices.

so I'm not sure why do I need to convert MAK to KMS

can you clarify ?


in the same time the inconvenience is that I have to have a different image for branch offices than the major offices.

the branch offices activating with Akamai

the major offices activating with MAK proxy


another third scenario is when a laptop imaged with the branch office image is deployed in a major office we're back to square one.

in case of MAK proxy scenario, do you mind explaining (cause I don't see it in the articles) what needs to be configured on the workstations so that it contacts the MAK proxy ? the only thing I know for sure it's done on workstations is installing the office 2010 suite through the image. How does it know to go to a MAK proxy or KMS or Akamai ?

July 9th, 2015 9:14am

I don't get it

I couldn't paste the link

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July 9th, 2015 9:14am

library/ff603512(v=office.14).aspx
July 9th, 2015 9:15am

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff603512(v=office.14).aspx
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July 9th, 2015 1:13pm

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff603512(v=office.14).aspx
July 9th, 2015 1:13pm

Hi,

Sorry for the late response.

First regarding MAK proxy activation: This method is for all computers that can connect to a MAK proxy server. For those computers that are isolated from the corporate network or the Internet, we recommend that you use MAK independent activation through the telephone.

In short, if you are using MAK proxy activation that will require a network connection. If youre the client machine in your major office is isolated to internet, you will need to use MAK independent activation with phone.

In your second post, you mentioned is there a proxy activation mechanism, in other words to designate a server of our own to talk to Microsoft or Akamai automatically when polled by incoming requests from computers for office 2010 activations ? KMS activation is exactly the method you are looking for.

You can use KMS activation for both your branch office and major office. KMS host is that designated server which talk to Microsoft activation service, the rest of your client only talk to KMS host.

This article explains how to set up a KMS host and configure KMS client.

After KMS host set-up, follow following steps to active your Office client.

Let me know if you have further request or if I misunderstood anything, thank you.


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July 23rd, 2015 11:50pm

Hi,

Sorry for the late response.

First regarding MAK proxy activation: This method is for all computers that can connect to a MAK proxy server. For those computers that are isolated from the corporate network or the Internet, we recommend that you use MAK independent activation through the telephone.

In short, if you are using MAK proxy activation that will require a network connection. If youre the client machine in your major office is isolated to internet, you will need to use MAK independent activation with phone.

In your second post, you mentioned is there a proxy activation mechanism, in other words to designate a server of our own to talk to Microsoft or Akamai automatically when polled by incoming requests from computers for office 2010 activations ? KMS activation is exactly the method you are looking for.

You can use KMS activation for both your branch office and major office. KMS host is that designated server which talk to Microsoft activation service, the rest of your client only talk to KMS host.

This article explains how to set up a KMS host and configure KMS client.

After KMS host set-up, follow following steps to active your Office client.

Let me know if you have further request or if I misunderstood anything, thank you.


July 24th, 2015 3:48am

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