I come to find out that the WAS service is considered an IIS component, and creating false positives when IISADMIN/WMSvc do not exist on a monitored server that fits this role. Is it required for KMS activation, or any other Windows 2008 server functions (domain controllers, SQL servers, etc) that support non web/ftp/iis servers? Can someone confirm if only the "Software Protection" service is required for KMS activation? It turns out that .NET 3.5.1 and WAS may not be required in our standard 2008 R2 build as previously thought (for KMS). B. Wright

You dont require WAS service for KMS. The benefits of WAS are Process recycling. Idle shutdown.Process health monitoring. Message-based activation.Works with HTTP, TCP, named pipes, and MSMQ. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms730158.aspxhttp://www.arabitpro.com

Hi Wright, Software Licensing Service is also required for KMS. More information: Understanding KMS Configuring KMS Hosts How to troubleshoot the Key Management Service (KMS) Hope this helps. Jeremy Wu TechNet Community Support

Why then does the WAS service exist when the WCF componets are not added in as a windows server feature. What you describe for WAS functionality, is actually dependant on the WCF Activation UNDER .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features. Is there any way to not have WAS, but still have the BASE .NET Framework 3.5.1 componet (whose description mentions nothing about WAS, until WCF, which you can see, is unchecked in my environment, but the service exists on the system)? Windows Communication Foundation Activation Components Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Activation Components use Windows Process Activation Service to call applications remotely over a network by using protocols such as HTTP, Message Queuing, TCP, and named pipes. Windows Communication Foundation Activation Components allows applications to start and stop dynamically in response to incoming work items, resulting in application hosting that is more robust, manageable, and efficient. B. Wright

I posted this as a follow up to another question specific to the WAS service, but realize that I may not get an answer, because it's a little off topic, so... any assistance is appreciated. Original question: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winservergen/thread/ff456aa2-96c7-465a-b8e2-a58deec3cd56/ Why then does the WAS service exist when the WCF componets are not added in as a windows server feature. What you describe for WAS functionality, is actually dependant on the WCF Activation UNDER .NET Framework 3.5.1 Features. Is there any way to not have WAS, but still have the BASE .NET Framework 3.5.1 componet (whose description mentions nothing about WAS, until WCF, which you can see, is unchecked in my environment, but the service exists on the system)? Windows Communication Foundation Activation Components Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Activation Components use Windows Process Activation Service to call applications remotely over a network by using protocols such as HTTP, Message Queuing, TCP, and named pipes. Windows Communication Foundation Activation Components allows applications to start and stop dynamically in response to incoming work items, resulting in application hosting that is more robust, manageable, and efficient. B. Wright