I know that windows 7 requires 25 physical clients computers to activate. My question though is, is this seperate from the 5 windows 2008 clients or are they combined? IE. If we have 40 windows 2008 servers registered with kms can we now activate windows 7 clients against kms if we only have 7 physical on the network or do we still require 25? We are going with vdi, currently we have about 120 windows 7 clients as vm's but obviously they do not count against the client total on kms. We only have around 10-15 physical windows 7 clients. We want to get away from using mak's

I know that windows 7 requires 25 physical clients computers to activate. My question though is, is this seperate from the 5 windows 2008 clients or are they combined? IE. If we have 40 windows 2008 servers registered with kms can we now activate windows 7 clients against kms if we only have 7 physical on the network or do we still require 25? We are going with vdi, currently we have about 120 windows 7 clients as vm's but obviously they do not count against the client total on kms. We only have around 10-15 physical windows 7 clients. We want to get away from using mak's I believe it's 25 clients total. All systems if using KMS are clients to the KMS Service... The 120 Windows 7 Clients should count as licenses because a license is defined as a running Instance, virtual or physical. That shouldn't make a difference. If you have Volume Licensing Agreements with MS, I would definately contact Volume License support to troubleshoot further than the Technet Library provides. Understanding Key Management Services for Customer-Hosted Volume Activation http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793434.aspx Deploying KMS Activation http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793409.aspx KMS Activation Help http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793419.aspx Configuring KMS Clients http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793406.aspx - Very nice article, includes converting retail installs to KMS. Configuring DNS for KMS http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793405.aspx Best Regards Steve Kline - MCITP This posting is "as is" without warranties and confers no rights.

Thanks Steve. I was under the impression that virtual machines still did not count as a license. They verify against the kms server but their licenses do not count as a license out of the 25 is what I had always read, unless that has been recently changed.

According to the planning guide, virtual machines and physical systems both count, http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793434.aspx -- Mike Burr

Thanks Steve. I was under the impression that virtual machines still did not count as a license. They verify against the kms server but their licenses do not count as a license out of the 25 is what I had always read, unless that has been recently changed. It's posted in the Product Use Rights, that document is available through the volume license service center. Each physical instance with Software Assurance/Upgrade licenses is also alotted a number of freebie VM installs on that same box. Examples: Windows 7 Enterprise: Single PC Can run virtually, 4 instances of Windows 7 Enterprise or its qualified downgradeable parts as part of an Upgrade license. (Software Assurance) 7 Enterprise, Vista Enterprise, Vista Business, or XP Professional SP3. It's all in the EULA and PUR documents. http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/PL.aspx Here's the playout for server 2008. Operating System Permitted instances in physical and virtual operating system environments on a single server Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and Windows MultiPoint Server 2010 Academic 1* + 1 Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise 1* + 4 Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter 1 + Unlimited Virtual Instances Windows Small Business Server 2008 Standard 1* or 1 Windows Server 2003 for Small Business 1* or 1 This was a copy from the April edition of PUR 2010. The link above has all the latest editions for it. Might be a good favorites bar link.... Steve Kline - MCITP This posting is "as is" without warranties and confers no rights.

Hi Scott, Just to clarify the answer of this question, if there are 40 Windows 2008 servers but only 7 Windows 7 clients, the total count is 47 which is above 25. That means the 7 Windows 7 clients can be activated. In another case, if there are 21 Windows 7 clients, but only 4 Windows 2008 servers. The total count is 25. Then the Windows 7 clients can be activated but not the Windows 2008 servers. Because KMS requires the server count >=5 for the servers to activate. Hope that’s clear for you. Speaking of virtual machine, KMS host on Windows Server 2008 R2 automatically counts the virtual machines. KMS host on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2003 need a hot fix to be installed to activate Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 clients and count virtual machines. Please refer to the two KB articles below for the hotfix of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 KMS hosts. An update is available for Windows Vista and for Windows Server 2008 to extend KMS activation support for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968912 An update is available that installs Key Management Service (KMS) 1.2 for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) and for later versions of Windows Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968915/ Regards, Karen JiPlease 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. This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Perfect, a bit of confusion on my part from referencing older material I guess. Thanks to you all for updating me and pointing me to the appropriate documentation.