|
If you're using Volume License media, you should be using a Volume License Key to activate windows. If you're not providing the key as part of your imaging process, the Windows client is looking for a KMS server and not finding it as you've noticed. I don't know about getting Windows to read the OEM key from the bios, but that's technically a violation of the license agreement. Use the VLK you should have.
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2016 22:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:42 |
|
|
Can you manually input the OEM key?
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2016 23:27
|
|
|
I doubt VL media would accept an OEM key
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2016 23:41
|
|
|
Mr. Clark2 posted:Until recently I created my reference image on a physical machine and had no problems deploying this image to workstations using MDT. I have recently switched to using a VM to create the reference image using a copy of win 7 pro downloaded from Microsoft's VLSC. I can create and capture the image without issue but I'm running up against a problem with licensing. I ran into a similar problem when I was investigating whether we could upgrade our old WinXP workstations to Vista, but nobody had kept any of the OEM media for Win Vista around. With Vista I was able to find some random OEM media and then found the HP OEM files and injected them onto the disc image so that it was able to install activated on our machines that were licensed for it. You'll probably be able to find information here (I think it's grey area legally): http://forums.mydigitallife.info/forums/16-Windows-7
|
|
#
?
Jan 7, 2016 23:51
|
|
|
Thanks Ants posted:I doubt VL media would accept an OEM key If you take an image of an OEM Install of the OS it might. Legally grey area is right.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 01:08
|
|
|
NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:I used this regularly and it's great but I never scripted it, just used gui Page 41 of their use guide is Automating Enterprise Migrations so looks like a winner
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 02:24
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:If you're using Volume License media, you should be using a Volume License Key to activate windows. If you're not providing the key as part of your imaging process, the Windows client is looking for a KMS server and not finding it as you've noticed. I'll have to double check when I'm back at work tomorrow, but I think the keys that we were provided are MAK and not VLK. Not sure of the distinction, this licensing seems needlessly complex and confusing. I reimage machines pretty frequently and burning a MAK every time I do so (then having to call and obtain more keys) seems like it would be quite limiting. The MS document available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/learn-more/brief-reimaging-rights.aspx seems to suggest that what I'm doing is allowed.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 02:34
|
|
|
Mr. Clark2 posted:Is there some way to get the new reference image to use the OEM key from the BIOS to activate? Hopefully this is all kosher as googling for answers gives me conflicting information. You need to install windows using the master oem key for your computers manufacturer, not the VLSC key, which will make windows look to the bios for activation, not check for a KMS server. You might also need to use an oem supplied windows disc/image when installing, or one that has been 'universalized' in some way.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 03:13
|
|
|
Mr. Clark2 posted:I'll have to double check when I'm back at work tomorrow, but I think the keys that we were provided are MAK and not VLK. Not sure of the distinction, this licensing seems needlessly complex and confusing. I reimage machines pretty frequently and burning a MAK every time I do so (then having to call and obtain more keys) seems like it would be quite limiting. You should have been given both a MAK and a KMS key when your employer got the volume license media; just install the KMS key if you're allowed because it's much much easier that way; no messing with OEM files and no need for client keys, they activate themselves and drop off after 6 months. If you do use the MAK after the first time calling you can just email them to get more activations.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 08:42
|
|
|
I have an older file server that I'd like to use as a disk target for my backups. What's the best of the "free" linux based nas choices for this? The one's I'm familiar with are OpenFiler and FreeNas, but I know there are a bunch of other options too. Looks like FreeNas is probably going to be my choice, but I figured you guys would have other opinions worth hearing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 14:32
|
|
|
Gerdalti posted:I have an older file server that I'd like to use as a disk target for my backups. What's the best of the "free" linux based nas choices for this? The one's I'm familiar with are OpenFiler and FreeNas, but I know there are a bunch of other options too. Looks like FreeNas is probably going to be my choice, but I figured you guys would have other opinions worth hearing. I use FreeNAS at home to present an iSCSI LUN to my Windows boxes just fine.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 18:52
|
|
|
mayodreams posted:I use FreeNAS at home to present an iSCSI LUN to my Windows boxes just fine. That's pretty much my plan. FreeNAS seems like the best choice.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2016 19:33
|
|
|
This is one of the more bullshit things I've seen in a while. I cloned a Windows 10 laptop to be the new image for further laptops. I restored to some new laptops, and fetched the OEM motherboard-baked BIOS keys from those laptops then pasted them into "Activate Windows" like I always do. But now the original laptop I cloned from refuses to activate. I called Microsoft Volume Licensing and gave them the motherboard serial, and they say it has been blocked for being used to activate too many machines and I have to buy a fresh copy now. This has been my process across dozens of machines for as long as Build 1511 has been out. I make a new ghost image every month or so, and this is the first time I've seen a legit Windows 8.1 motherboard key get nuked on it's own loving machine, I guess because Microsoft's server sees it pop up for a minute or two on each reimage before I put in that laptop's own motherboard key. I even went and bought cloning rights from Microsoft a while back. They can't actually do me like this, can they?
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 01:45
|
|
|
Everyone keeps telling you that you are doing sketchy as hell things with licensing. Are you really surprised that you ran into problems? Why are you taking an image of an OEM machine? What exactly did "purchasing cloning rights" entail?
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 02:14
|
|
|
Internet Explorer posted:Everyone keeps telling you that you are doing sketchy as hell things with licensing. Are you really surprised that you ran into problems? I ran all of this by actual 1st party Microsoft licensing specialists and they said go for it. But anyway, we only use one model of laptop across the whole organization (Elitebook 840), so we set up the configuration and Clonezilla it to further laptops, then change the PC name and set the PC to it's own motherboard product key. The "cloning rights" was them telling me that as long as I bought a single copy of Windows 10 Pro through volume licensing, I would reimaging rights to make a master image using any 3rd party tool I wanted, and I could do this to any laptop as long as it initially had a valid Windows 7/8 OEM key, which they all do; HP and my vendor ships every laptop of this model with a key. I guess I could technically use the volume license key from Microsoft to get these to activate, but they've never given me a solid answer on whether or not I can use those as a stand-in for the free Windows 10 Upgrade program. The licensing specialist said he wasn't sure but doing in-place upgrades was fine (i.e. I used to install a Win8 upgrade and ran the upgrade wizard to make it activated Win 10, after Build 1511 I just use the more direct feature when you can bunch in the BIOS key directly in Win 10). I'm just surprised that I did this so far for like 100+ laptops with no issue at all and suddenly one gets it's own key hosed. Maybe I can ask HP to just reset the activation counter for the BIOS key on it. Because of the way it was reimaged, it might have gotten like 3 activations in, but if HP/Microsoft actually looks, they'll clearly see only one is still going.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 14:33
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:I even went and bought cloning rights from Microsoft a while back. What did you buy exactly? You should just buy a mass activation key from Microsoft and be done with the janky way you are doing it now.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 14:34
|
|
|
You have to understand Zero VGS has one hosed up network and everything is build on string and spit. Saying that, we're migrating to the same Elitebook laptops.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 14:49
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:I ran all of this by actual 1st party Microsoft licensing specialists and they said go for it. But anyway, we only use one model of laptop across the whole organization (Elitebook 840), so we set up the configuration and Clonezilla it to further laptops, then change the PC name and set the PC to it's own motherboard product key. The "cloning rights" was them telling me that as long as I bought a single copy of Windows 10 Pro through volume licensing, I would reimaging rights to make a master image using any 3rd party tool I wanted, and I could do this to any laptop as long as it initially had a valid Windows 7/8 OEM key, which they all do; HP and my vendor ships every laptop of this model with a key. Sounds like you should be asking that Microsoft licensing specialist then.  I've heard of this loophole before and I'm pretty sure you should be using your volume license key. As long as your OS version matches what's on the OEM sticker you should be "good." Just keep in mind this loophole contradicts the concept that a volume license only exists as an upgrade to an OEM copy of Windows. GreenNight posted:You have to understand Zero VGS has one hosed up network and everything is build on string and spit. Sorry, I don't really buy this excuse. If you can't afford the software, don't use it. Plus he's mentioned that his company is a direct competitor with VMware. I don't really buy the excuse that the money isn't there. He comes off as every other cheap IT guy I've run into in my career. "If I save them money, they'll give the money to me instead!"
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 15:04
|
|
|
I bought Elitebooks with Windows 8 Pro OEM built-in on all of them. Here's a Spiceworks post from a Microsoft rep I just found, for example: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1079044-windows-10-volume-licensing posted:If you want to build a clean image for Windows 10 and reimage them after upgrading via free upgrade offer; then you will need a minimum of one Windows 10 Pro Volume License Upgrade. This will permit you to use the VL media/key to create your Windows 10 Pro image and provide you the rights to reimage all 70 of your PCs. Those 70 W7 Pro devices will need to be upgraded to Windows 10 first, before you can reimage them with VL media/key. This is what I was doing before Build 1511, and as you could imagine, imaging Windows 8 then doing an in-place upgrade to 10, then reimaging the new image and hoping it automatically activates (which takes hours to days and sometimes doesn't work), that whole process takes forever. So, I asked my Microsoft rep if on build 1511 which lets you now enter keys directly if I could use the BIOS key, they say go for it, but now the BIOS key is blocked for too many activations. I guess my mistake was probably not removing the key before making the image so it wouldn't show up on the new PCs before I put in their BIOS keys. GreenNight posted:You have to understand Zero VGS has one hosed up network and everything is build on string and spit. I get it's fun to poo poo on me but I probably put a lot more actual thought and effort into being MS compliant than the IT people with infinite budget. I definitely put more thought and effort into Microsoft licensing than Microsoft does, since I'm constantly asking their licensing reps things that they can't even figure out answers for. It's a great model of laptop by the way, very easy to repair and upgrade, and they have some neat accessories like a slim docking station, and a flat extended battery that clicks into the bottom and gives like 20 hours battery life if you have a G2 (Broadwell) version. I even just got 20 UK keyboards for the 840 on eBay and switched them all out, saved us thousands versus buying the laptops in the UK.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 16:26
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:I get it's fun to poo poo on me but I probably put a lot more actual thought and effort into being MS compliant than the IT people with infinite budget. I definitely put more thought and effort into Microsoft licensing than Microsoft does, since I'm constantly asking their licensing reps things that they can't even figure out answers for. I'd be careful leaning to heavily on them even. I've gotten different answers to the same questions before from MS reps and had to change a licensing purchase. I honestly think that if you include all the time spent on this you'd probably be better off just buying a mass activation key.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 16:32
|
|
|
BaseballPCHiker posted:I'd be careful leaning to heavily on them even. I've gotten different answers to the same questions before from MS reps and had to change a licensing purchase. I honestly think that if you include all the time spent on this you'd probably be better off just buying a mass activation key. It would certainly save me a lot of time, but I can't bring myself to buy 500 copies of Windows when I already paid for and own 500 copies of Windows from CDW as OEM preinstallations, it's the principle. The Microsoft guys are inconsistent but at least the stuff I get from them is good enough for our lawyer. The one single Windows 10 Pro VL key I bought can be used to instantly activate all my images, but I've 100% avoided using it so far because it seems like a "gotcha" where they'll tell me I couldn't actually use it with the free Windows 10 upgrade offer, and now I owe them $100k or something. Here's another official post: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1238259-updates-to-deploying-the-windows-10-free-upgrade This looks the closest to what I've been searching for, and it's still a poo poo show. I'll try to contact that Chris from Microsoft guy directly and see what he says.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 16:59
|
|
|
It's just easier if you can use KMS. That's how I do it and we get OS via OEM too.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 17:10
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:it seems like a "gotcha" where they'll tell me I couldn't actually use it with the free Windows 10 upgrade offer, and now I owe them $100k or something. Aha, yeah. I think by the terms of the various licenses you cannot perform a free W10 upgrade by itself just by installing from W10 VL media with a KMS. You must upgrade via Windows Update or via the Media Creation Tool. If you have one of the licensing agreements mentioned in that link it sounds like you just document the systems getting an upgrade and then you're allowed to just reimage immediately with volume license media and keys, but if you just have an Open license with Microsoft then you would be out of compliance if you did not perfom the W10 upgrade prior to deploying a W10 image. Once you've done the WU update or the MCT update on a specific machine, then you absolutely can reimage with a KMS key, and everything is way easier if you use KMS anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 17:28
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:I guess my mistake was probably not removing the key before making the image so it wouldn't show up on the new PCs before I put in their BIOS keys. Yep. So create a proper image and go at it again. Ideally you'd re-image the laptops with the bad image as well at some point. Or just stick all your keys in KMS, which'll save you more headaches in the future. And yeah the 840 is a really solid device. We had some issues with the 4G modules not performing well (cause the fuckers didn't actually put them in properly) but otherwise, really solid.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 18:04
|
|
|
Yeah we got 50 HP 840 G3 laptops coming for upgrades. Already built the driver pack into SCCM.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 18:15
|
|
|
Jeoh posted:Yep. So create a proper image and go at it again. Ideally you'd re-image the laptops with the bad image as well at some point. Or just stick all your keys in KMS, which'll save you more headaches in the future. We don't have any windows servers, domains, or cals at all, and my bosses don't want them, so I don't think I can spin up KMS without a huge capital expenditure. Maybe I could do one in Azure later on. For now I made a new Win10 1511 image with all Windows keys stripped out of it, so that should avoid the accidental key-nuke thing going forwards. I was told before that 1511 manual key entry is supposed to fulfill upgrade requirements the same as Windows Update / Media Builder but I'll ask Microsoft again. GreenNight posted:Yeah we got 50 HP 840 G3 laptops coming for upgrades. Already built the driver pack into SCCM. Whoa, when did the G3's come out? I've been checking their sit for months to see when they'd finally jam Skylakes into the 840. I probably won't get any for a while but they make the Haswell and Broadwell 840s much cheaper when they're both within like 10% of the performance.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 18:51
|
|
|
Oh, in other, non-licensing related Windows poo poo... We have Skype for Business for everyone in the company. I'm trying to get them to use it instead of GoToMeeting and WebEx, which both cost a ton, don't work all that much better, and don't have any directory/Outlook integration like S4B does. Right now some devs are telling me it won't work out, because if a customer is a Mac user, they can share their screen but they can't share control of it, which GtM and WebEx can? Is that true? I put in a ticket with MS but I'm wondering if anyone else here has done a migration and if there's any other feature parity issues I should be looking out for. I tested quite a while and haven't seen any other big pitfalls other than the screen sharing being kinda sluggish. Edit: I also just had an Indian Microsoft guy tell me there's no way to stop our Outlook clients from sending 500 autodiscover.xml requests each hour to our web domain, it is intended behavior. But he also said he would "do the needful" so that made my day. Zero VGS fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jan 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 19:03
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:Whoa, when did the G3's come out? I've been checking their sit for months to see when they'd finally jam Skylakes into the 840. I probably won't get any for a while but they make the Haswell and Broadwell 840s much cheaper when they're both within like 10% of the performance. Just recently. We've been told they'll be delivered in 2 weeks. At least the OEM key is Windows 10.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 19:14
|
|
|
Attempting to rename your AD domain is still a terrible idea these days, right? Ours was stupidly set up ages ago using the same public domain name as our main company website and a bunch of other public services. We'd love to rename it from companyname.com to corp.companyname.com or whatever but all I've ever heard is "NOPE NOPE NOPE". This would be a 2008 R2 functional level domain and forest, if that matters.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 21:05
|
|
|
It's technically possible, but I'm not sure I've ever heard of anyone doing it outside of a lab environment. It it was a small domain, and I tested it in a test environment first, I might roll the dice on it. No way I would do it on the production domain I support. Popular opinion though seems to be setup a properly named domain and migrate everything to it. Not as fast, but probably safer. It's funny how a such a simple setting at the beginning of setting up a new domain causes so many drat issues for people down the line. edit: found a decent blog post about the process.. Also if you have Exchange domain rename is no go. http://blog.varonis.com/risks-renaming-your-domain-in-active-directory/
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 21:21
|
|
|
I am in the same boat Docjowles. Too much stuff to migrate it, too scared to rename in. I could lab it to see what happens, but for now I will leave it on the back-burner.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 21:34
|
|
|
Moey posted:I am in the same boat Docjowles. Too much stuff to migrate it, too scared to rename in. I could lab it to see what happens, but for now I will leave it on the back-burner. even labbing it there's likely a bunch of poo poo that you can't test or just won't see because you're 1 dude (with maybe a few helpers) and your owrkplace is hundreds if not thousands of dudes + workstations and servers and oh my god we renamed it and now 70% of people can't log in and the other 30% can't access $webhostedapp$
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 21:58
|
|
|
Migrating isn't too horrible. Setup your trust between the domain and do a controlled move of existing stuff while making sure anything new is in the new domain. We migrated a smaller company(400 users) we purchased over to our domain pretty painlessly. Took about 6 months to get everything moved over, the enterprise apps were the tricky part. User accounts and computers were done by month 2 I think.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 22:08
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:Migrating isn't too horrible. Setup your trust between the domain and do a controlled move of existing stuff while making sure anything new is in the new domain. Good to know. Maybe I'll plan this at some point. We are not too much larger than that, just hope our devs won't want to kill me. We have a few in-house applications.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2016 22:40
|
|
|
Zero VGS posted:We don't have any windows servers, domains, or cals at all, and my bosses don't want them, so I don't think I can spin up KMS without a huge capital expenditure. Maybe I could do one in Azure later on. In case you're still interested, you can install KMS on a Desktop OS, and point your machines to it for activation. KMS is really the proper way to handle all of this. You're not on a domain so I'm not sure how you'll handle the normal DNS part of it , but you can script the activation to manually point to a computer running KMS pretty easily. You don't need a server OS, or CAL's, just an old Windows machine running KMS (note there are some patch requirements to activate Windows 10 machines). The Microsoft Product Terms for Desktop Operating Systems state: "An unlimited number of connections are allowed for KMS activation or similar technology"
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2016 19:46
|
|
|
Swink posted:Disclaimer: I haven't used this for a number of years, nor on so many accounts(unsure if its scriptable) I used this to migrate a few dozen accounts manually and it worked wonders. I did run into issues with IE not allowing certain passwords to be saved any longer, but that was the only issue I came across. It's fully scriptable if you purchase a license, which is fairly affordable iirc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2016 20:47
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:In case you're still interested, you can install KMS on a Desktop OS, and point your machines to it for activation. KMS is really the proper way to handle all of this. You're not on a domain so I'm not sure how you'll handle the normal DNS part of it , but you can script the activation to manually point to a computer running KMS pretty easily. I dont think he needs to even setup a KMS, he could just buy a mass activation key and use that until it runs out.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2016 21:09
|
|
|
Speaking of KMS, is it possible to restrict KMS activation to a specific OU or other AD container/security group? We don't have KMS, I'm saying we desperately need it, but my director is concerned about the following scenario. We have multiple companies under the north american umbrella, currently they are all on separate forests. We are migrating two of them to the new consolidated domain this year, with the strong possibility of migrating the other companies in the years following. Each company is responsible for purchasing their own licensing, and my director is concerned about managing KMS for everyone, especially if they don't buy licensing. I know KMS doesn't give a poo poo, everyone discovers through the SRV record[s] and it just hands out activations, but it would make him much happier if it were possible to restrict to a specific OU for our company's workstations, etc. I think his concerns are dumb and everything still applies, each company still has to remain compliant, but you gotta make him happy, etc etc.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2016 02:23
|
|
|
You answered your own question. KMS is done with a DNS service record and a client key that tells the OS to get its license from KMS. AD doesn't figure in to it. I mean I guess you could script slmgr to input a KMS client key on certain OUs and just leave the rest to a MAK or whatever.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2016 02:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 22:42 |
|
|
We have a sister company in our domain that has a MAK key for all their desktops and I have a KMS key for our desktops. KMS doesn't override their MAK key.
|
|
#
?
Jan 28, 2016 04:19
|
|