Licensing issues

[Grommit]

We have just bought 100 Desktops and they have all come with a VISTA Business CD in the box..

Now we build and then deploy VIA Ghost.....

Will (as with XP Pro) the single VISTA Business key work with all 100 Desktops ?

We have no Vol License as these are our first VISTAS

Will they work and update

Will they just work by themselves and not update..

Or will there be issues ?

?

[Michael]

I think the problem you face is with Product Activation, so in practice you cannot use the same serial over and over, otherwise everyone would do it! You'll need to Sysprep your images, but also enter a unique serial for each workstation. Windows XP had Mini Setup. I presume Vista has something similar?

Here's a good link about Vista and Server 2008 product activation. A Volume License Agreement with Windows XP consisted of a VLK (Volume License Key) and no required activation. Any other version required a license key and manual product activation.

With Windows Vista (in your situation), because you do not have a Volume License Agreement, I believe the only way is to enter a unique serial and activate each workstation manually. Maybe someone else can confirm this?

[FN-GM]

Until you get Vista Volume licensing the easiest solution for you will be to use Windows XP. But that might not be an option now you have built the image.

[Grommit]

Until you get Vista Volume licensing the easiest solution for you will be to use Windows XP. But that might not be an option now you have built the image.

well I think with all the Vista runaround it will be easier to redo the build with XP Pro SP2...

[Michael]

You'd think Microsoft would allow any Vista domain connected workstation to register its license with the KMS (Key Management Service). It seems both methods require you to have a Vista Volume License agreement which is a little daft.

I don't think they've thought it through very well and are more determined than ever to try and prevent piracy and pi$$ off network managers in the same process.

[m25man]

The Vista Licensing system is a sham and because of the slow adoption of the OS in the Volume user arena it's true failings are only just begining to come to light.
Many schools use a very popular Licensing reseller and in the last few days one of our clients have been having all sorts of activation failures during their first attempts at Vista mass deployment.
The Licensing agent has been very helpful but the fixes are truly dubious to say the least.

The origional key used was a 500 seat KMS however this began to fail and the agent has admitted that the same key has been issued to other schools in the UK!

Now they have been emailing over new keys to try!

Some of these have failed with a failure code indicating that these are not KMS keys at all but MAK keys and that they have already been activated.

Now with a deadline approaching the KMS system has been abandoned due to a lack of available valid working keys and a new block of MAK's issued so this school is now rolling out syspreped Vista Business with MAK keys that they hope have not been issued to another school!

The only good news is that there are only 50 machines in the pilot roll out.

It's truly a mess, where a school has a direct agreement with MS and a key assigned directly to them I should thing everything will be as documented however if you are part of a larger licencing group be prepared for an uncomfortable ride as it clearly seems that there are problems that have not been correctly planned and catered for.

I expect we are going to see a lot more of these situations developing and this will have a serious long term impact on the management and TCO of Volume Product ID's is school systems and as seen in posts previous to this managers will continue to hold on to XP for a long time to come unless this system is made more user freindly.