Hi I am having a couple of licensing issues with regards to a new 2008 4 node cluster. We have a KMS server that I can see is working properly (its licensed about 120 server so far). 1 node in the cluster is licensed properly, but the other 3 are not... The error is a message box that pops up when trying to activate. "Windows Activation" is the heading of the box. Error reads: "An unauthorised change was made to Windows. Windows must be reinstalled to activate. Insert the Windows installation DVD or CD into your computer to begin the reinstallation process" This cluster is still being built, so the storage people are constantly adding volumes into the cluster and I suspect this is the "unauthorized change" the error message refers to. As it is a production cluster that the company has spent months building up, I would really not like to tell them they have to rebuild due to this issue! I have found a couple of references that refer to the following procedure and was wondering if anyone here can verify it will (1) Not damage the server, and (2) actually resolve the issue. 1) 'Run as Administrator', cmd.exe 2) Type: net stop slsvc (it may ask you if you are sure, select yes) 3) Type: cd %windir%\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareLicensing 4) Type: rename tokens.dat tokens.bar 5) Type: cd %windir%\system32 6) Type net start slsvc 7) Type: cscript slmgr.vbs -rilc (It may take a long time for this to complete, please be patient) 8) Reboot when asked 9) Rerun slmgr /ato If this fails I have a plan to move resources over to the properly licensed node 1 by 1, remove each node from the cluster, get them rebuilt and then re-add the nodes back into the cluster, but I would really rather not do that as they are very sensitive about this cluster. Note - Using system restore to go back in time to before the "unauthorized change" as I have seen in some places is not an option here...

Hi, Please roboot twice in Step 8. If the issue persists, please run the Validation tool on http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/ Tim Quan

Hi Tim Thanks for taking the time to respond. Is this procedure an approved procedure from Microsoft? The reason I ask is because the client and the managers will want to know, but I have not seen it in a KB article yet. Will the validation tool actually do anything to fix the issue or is it to only to confirm if the OS is legitimate? If its the 2nd answer, these servers are on an enterprise network managed by a very large Microsoft Partner (who I work for), with over 7000 servers, all of which are running genuine software. We regularly have MS Premier Support come in to consult, so I would be absolutely stunned beyond belief if it was a non-genuine image, particularly considering the 4th node in the cluster is the same image and validated fine. I suspect the reason it came up with this error is because the cluster was still being built and SANs and memory was recently added before we had our new KMS server in, not because the actual version of Windows is bad.