All, We are using KMS in our environment and the 2008 R2 servers we build seem to activate without issue. The problem I have is that the SPP service randomly starts throughout the day, checks the licensing status, and then goes back to sleep. This is only supposed to happen once every 7 days to renew the 180 activation, but it seems to happen multiple times on some days, and then not again for a week. I'm looking at the registry settings and slmgr.vbs documentation and I can't seem to find any indication as to why this would happen more frequently than the settings below... Suggestions? [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform] "VLActivationInterval"=dword:00000078 "VLRenewalInterval"=dword:00002760 Thanks, ChrisChris Spann, Geek

Hi Chris, Does this issue occur on your Windows Server 2008 R2 KMS clients? Do all KMS clients encounter the same issue? Does any activation related error or error like “your copy of Windows is not genuine” occur on your computer? Please check Event logs to find more information. Tim Quan 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.

This seems to happen on 2008 R2 KMS clients. Running slmgr /dlk shows that the servers are licensed and shows the check-in periond I would expect (7 days). There are events though in the event log like the following: Log Name: Application Source: Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP Date: 8/16/2010 8:20:04 AM Event ID: 16384 Task Category: None Level: Information Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: ******** Description: Successfully scheduled Software Protection service for re-start at 2010-08-18T18:53:04Z. Reason: GVLK. Event Xml: <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event"> <System> <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Security-SPP" Guid="{E23B33B0-C8C9-472C-A5F9-F2BDFEA0F156}" EventSourceName="Software Protection Platform Service" /> <EventID Qualifiers="16384">16384</EventID> <Version>0</Version> <Level>4</Level> <Task>0</Task> <Opcode>0</Opcode> <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> <TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-08-16T13:20:04.000000000Z" /> <EventRecordID>5928</EventRecordID> <Correlation /> <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" /> <Channel>Application</Channel> <Computer>******</Computer> <Security /> </System> <EventData> <Data>2010-08-18T18:53:04Z</Data> <Data>GVLK</Data> </EventData> </Event>Chris Spann, Geek

Hello Chris, You are getting following event id 16384 - "Successfully scheduled Software Protection service for re-start at %1. Reason: %2." Are you also seeing following events: 903 - "The Software Protection service has stopped.%n" 900 - "The Software Protection service is starting.%n" 1066 - "Initialization status for service objects.%n%1" 1033 - "These policies are being excluded since they are only defined with override-only attribute.%nPolicy Names=%1%nApp Id=%2%nSku Id=%3" These are events associated with SPPSVC service startup and shutdown. The service is designed to shut down when nobody is using it. An application may call SL API, which will cause the service to wake up. Here is some additional information that may help to investigate anomalies in SPPSVC wakeup-shutdown pattern (notice that starting up because some other app calls SL API is not an anomaly ): First of all, before the service shuts down, it updates a Windows Task Scheduler task under Microsoft/Windows/SoftwareProtectionPlatform. This task is scheduled to wake up SPPSVC approximately <renewal interval> minutes after a successful SPPSVC renewal (typically seven days later). You may want to look at this entry to verify that the next wake up time is consistent with your KMS renewal interval. Pay attention to the “Next Run Time” and “Last Run Time” fields. (This task schedule entry is hidden, so you need to enable viewing hidden tasks from the View menu in the Task Scheduler). Secondly, another potential reason for SPPSVC to keep waking up is another service: SPPUINOTIFY. This normally (when the system is in the licensed state) should run during KMS renewal and should shut itself down after the renewal has succeeded. If both of the above are right (that is the task scheduler task is scheduled outside of 2 hours and sppuinotify service is stopped), then there can be only an external reason for SPPSVC to wake up. Thanks,ankit