Do i've got two questions. First my orginization has a single Volume License Key but I'm a little tiny domain on my own network, can I use the same volume license key with KMS and not have them run into issues when they try to have their own KMS Server on the other domain? Second whats with the fact that I've got to activate 5 servers with my KMS server before the orginal 4 will show as properly registered? I was watching a microsoft video and they talked about how if you register 4 the first 4 won't register properly until the 5th registers for activation, and then the other 4 will follow but what happens if I only need 3 servers? Do I need 5 just to have windows GA not cut me off with a volume license? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=bbf2eb61-2b30-4f2d-bccd-df53e220b8e9&displaylang=en

Hello Magilla1981, The KMS host will activate all the KMS clients that contact it, it's not easy to isolate down to a single org, you can do that using IPSEC. 5 is the minium for using KMS, if you do not have 5 Servers that would be KMS clients, then you may be better off using the MAK keys for your ORG. Bother MAK and KMS keys should be available with your agreement and since you install them, only the machines you install them on would have to them so they would be isolated to your org. The MAK keys would activate with the MS activation servers and not use KMS so their is no minimum of 5 KMS clients to activate the servers Thanks, Darrell Gorter This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. Volume Activation documentation on TechNet http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dd197314.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd996588.aspx VAMT - Volume Activation Management Tool - Download link http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=ec7156d2-2864-49ee-bfcb-777b898ad582&displaylang=en

Hi, Thanks for posting in Microsoft TechNet forums. As I understand that you want to deploy the KMS across domains on your first question. If I misunderstand, please feel free to let me know. To answer this question, I would like to know: Do these domains have trust relationships? By default, there is a single KMS Key for every Volume License Agreement. The same KMS (Server/Host ) key can be used to activate 6 KMS hosts and the host itself can be reactivated 10 times. To quote from the VL Planning Guide: “If your organization needs more than six KMS hosts, you may request additional activations for your organization’s KMS key. An example of this would be if you had ten separate physical locations under one volume licensing agreement and you wanted each location to have a local KMS host.” BTW, I would like to share the following article for your reference: Using Key Management Services (KMS) Across Domains Secondly, why KMS requires at least 5 servers? This is by design, to qualify for KMS activation, a network must meet the activation threshold. For computers running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2, the activation threshold is 5. Only if the threshold is met, can the activation count be enough to connect the KMS host every two hours to get the current activation count. For more detailed information, please read: Understanding KMS If you only need 3 servers to be activated, as a work around, I recommend you to set up additional 2 Windows Server 2008 R2 VMs. Alternatively, you could setup the activation counts as a combination of computers running both servers and clients. Thus the client will contact the KMS host and supplement the activation count to meet the threshold. The activation count of the threshold for a combination of both servers and clients should ≥25. Best Regards Dale Qiao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread. ”

Okay so what happens if I plan to use more then 5 but at this current point I'm only running 2 servers with 2008. Obviously migrations of domains don't happen over night but it looks as though were going to use 2008 from now on?

If I understand correctly, here's your scenario: You have only 3 Windows Servers running in your environment: 2 Windows Server 2008 and one Windows Server 2003. If you only own 2 Windows Server 2008, none of these computers is activated. KMS activation must meet the threshold, you need at least 5 Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. Thus to overcome this problem, as I mentioned, you could include 3 Virtual Machines running Windows Server 2008 to supplement the activation threshold count. BTW, you could install KMS host on either Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 physical or virtual machines. If you install KMS host on Windows Server 2003, you need to update KMS on Windows Server 2003 to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Best Regards Dale Qiao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resolved. At this time, we will mark it as ‘Answered’ as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios. If the issue still persists, please feel free to reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. You can also choose to unmark the answer as you wish. BTW, we’d love to hear your feedback about the solution. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems. Thanks for your understanding and efforts. Best Regards Dale Qiao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum. If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.comPlease remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.