Given that you are allowed 4 virtual instances with a licensed copy of Windows 2008 Enterprise on the host, how do you actually get the virtual / guest OS of Windows 2008 to activate?I have managed to activate the Host OS using my volume licence / select key, but I dont know what the product ID should be used for my virtual / guest OS's or how I would go about licensing them - surely I don't have to use up another volume licence key from my pool do I?How does the guest OS bind to the Host OS license?Any help is welcome, Mark

Hi, Base on my research, Systems operating in virtual machine (VM) environments can also be activated using KMS or MAK. More information about Volume licensing about VM, please see: Volume Licensing http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/3/8/c3815ed7-aee7-4435-802b-8e855d549154/VolumeActivation2.0Step-By-StepGuide.doc Also, the updated licensing policy of VM is based on running instance. The following paragraph is what I abstract from Microsoft website. That disclaims: "To help you take advantage of the deployment flexibility that VM technology offers, all products in the Microsoft Servers licensing models are licensed by running instance. The use rights no longer specify the number of times the software may be installed and used on a server. Rather, each license gives you the right to run a certain number of instances of the software on a particular server at a time. The use rights specify that you must first assign an acquired software license to a particular server. Once a software license has been assigned to a particular server: That server is the licensed server for that software license You may run instances of the software on the licensed server, as specified in the license You may create and store any number of instances of the software on any of your servers or storage media For example, each license for Exchange Server grants you the right to create any number of instances of Exchange Server on any of your servers or storage media and the right to run one instance of Exchange at a time. That instance may be run in a physical or virtual OS environment, but only on the licensed server. As Figure 4 below illustrates, if you assign an Exchange Server license to server A, you may run one instance of Exchange in one physical OS environment) or in one virtual OS environment" More information about VM licensing, please refer to the below articles: Licensing Microsoft Server Products with Microsoft Virtual Server and Other Virtual Machine Technologies http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/9/68964284-864d-4a6d-aed9-f2c1f8f23e14/virtualization_whitepaper.doc Windows Server System Licensing to Virtualization Scenarios http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/virtualization.mspx Alternatively, for licensing questions, you can call 1-800-426-9400 (select option 4), Monday through Friday, 6:00 A.M. to 5:30 P.M. (PST) to speak directly to a Microsoft licensing specialist. Worldwide customers can use the Guide to Worldwide Microsoft Licensing Sites http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/index/worldwide.asp to find contact information in their locations. Hope this helps. Best wishes --------------Morgan Che

Thanks for providing this information Morgan. My concern is that I thought there must be an easy way to relate the guest to the Host OS licence. When I currently try tophysicaly activate the guest OS (Windows 2800 Ent 64bit) by using"Activate Windows Now" in Control Panel, System, I wait for ages only to be returned with the error:"A problem occurred when windows tried to activate 0x8007071A"This is a VM running from a .vmdk file hosted running in VMWareServer on a Windows 2008 Ent 64bit host.Anyone else having the same problem or know how to relate the 4 virtual instances to activate my guest OS's?

There are two parts to the volume license key that is used with the new Key Management Services. One part is for setting up a Key Management Server within your environment. That server is the ONLY server that connects to Microsoft if you are using KMS keys. Once you have properly set up your KMS, you should be good to go. Installing KMS as a service on Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 registers a SRV record into your DNS so that it can be found by all the other machines. The key for setting up KMS can be used up to six times (that is, you can use it to set up six KMS servers), before you would need to get another KMS key. You should only need one KMS server, except in very large environments or disjoint network configurations.When installing all subsequent instances of Windows Server 2008, when using volume licensing, you shouldn't have to use a key. This is the second part of the volume license key. Volume license media doesn't even ask for a key. It simply looks for the KMS server and registers with it.Now, if, for whatever reason you do have a system that did not activate, you use slmgr.vbs to manipulate keys. Execute slmgr.vbs without any arguments and it will list the various options for installing product keys, activating Windows, and other things.Lastly, there can be some interesting problems in getting to the KMS server. I have found that if I have my virtual machines in a different forest from where the KMS is located, and I didn't activate the virtual machinebefore I moved it into the other forest, the virtual machine cannot find the KMS through DNS. I've tried all sorts of things through DNS to try to get it to find it, but haven't been successful, yet. (If somebody else has been successful on this, I would find that interesting).So, the two things are to ensure you have your KMS server set up correctly and that the KMS is in the same forest as the machines you are trying to activate so the 'clients' can access it.tgc

Thanks for your time and response Tim. Are you saying that to make use of the 4 virtual instances on top of a licensed host you need to have a KMS setup? Is there no way of linking the host and guest OS's locally to each other on the same physical server?Mark

There is no relationship between the host and the guest OSes for activation - you cannot link them Mark. The reality is that you have a couple of choices, and it depends on how many Vista and Server 2008 machines you are going to have in your environment, and how you want to manage activation. Based on my experience, typically you go past a dozen of these machines, you'd want to setup a KMS server to service activation requests....that way it is automatic, and no one needs know the product key (except you!). You can installthe KMS service on a Server 2003 machine (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=81d1cb89-13bd-4250-b624-2f8c57a1ae7b&displaylang=en), or make a 2008 server a KMS server or finally make a Vista machine a KMS server if you want. You install the product key on this box, it registers with MS, publishes SRV records in your internal DNS (don't have to, but easier).....and all new Vista or Server 2008 boxes find the KMS and activate without any interaction.Alternatively, you could use a MAK key...which means you have to give this out to folks who install systems. Very similar to 2003 and XP volume licensing, but Microsoft put a restrictive cap on how many activate (each machine goes to the web to activate). Your error0x8007071A ....means "RPC_CANCELLED", but effectively that it attempted to contact a KMS server that was unresponsive....or not there !Tim....to answer your question about moving systems (VM or otherwise)before activating across multiple forests - why can you not just use slmgr.vbs -skms <ip_address of KMS server> and effectively hardcode the KMS on the client ? Clients (server 2008 or Vista) don't have to be domain joined to utilize the KMS. This works well for a dev environment (assuming port 1688 is open) and are not typically utilizing corp DNS, hence cannot find the SRV record.-Stuart Hudman

Thanks for this detailed explanation Stuart. I may have made some early assumptions, which would have been 'nice to have' but you technical comments do make sense and are very clear andhelpful.Kind regards,Mark :-)