Microsoft Volume Activation 2.0 for education

[thom]

Before I start
A) I have read the other topics on EduGeek about licensing and it seemed best to start a new topic
B) I am not thinking of upgrading any school PCs to vista but I need to know the information so I am fully prepared for any outcomes/meetings

I, like many schools I know of, buy a PC with windows XP pre-installed and then re-install it with the volume licensed media that I bought from Ramesys with the correct number of licenses.
For an installation, you enter the VLM product key manually or in a sysprep file, and can copy that from PC to PC with no activation required.

Now, this all changes with Vista because they have brought in Volume Activation 2, which means you now need to activate VL editions. When looking into this I was surprised to find an education specific presentation online (and attached). However, the presentation didn't really click in my head as to how this will work in real life or what I should be buying (SA isn't an option due to cost).
I phoned my account manager at Ramesys to see if he could help clear the waters but I was left feeling I knew more than him. They have one Product Key that they are sending to all customers with a Vista Business license for £29.50. He knew nothing about a KMS are MAK licenses.

Does anyone (including Microsoft) understand what I need to get?

[bossman]

Thom i would stop paying for pre installed XP pro for a start as you are paying for a license you already have through Ramesy's. If you are not intent on moving forward with Vista then i wouldn't worry too much about the licensing at the moment, Ramesy's will sort for you when you eventually proceed with Vista (i am giving it a wide berth at the moment) I don't envisage moving to Vista for the forseeable future (at least another year or more, don't see the need) and when it becomes time to deploy it will be a damn site easier when all the initial bugs are ironed out.

[DMcCoy]

Thom i would stop paying for pre installed XP pro for a start as you are paying for a license you already have through Ramesy's. If you are not intent on moving forward with Vista then i wouldn't worry too much about the licensing at the moment, Ramesy's will sort for you when you eventually proceed with Vista (i am giving it a wide berth at the moment) I don't envisage moving to Vista for the forseeable future (at least another year or more, don't see the need) and when it becomes time to deploy it will be a damn site easier when all the initial bugs are ironed out.

You still need to buy a license, xp pro or home when you buy machines. You are only paying for an upgrade for windows. Vista does have oem keys I believe, but I really don't know how this should be working. I have my own KMS key for my schools agreement and have a 250 computer MAK key.

[thom]

So I would need one KMS Key for the School and enough MAKs for each client?

[DMcCoy]

KMS only activates when you have 25 or more installs. The MAK key is for lower number of clients, as it counts each use of the key on the volume license site.

[thom]

So if I had 350, vista-ready, XP clients that I wanted to upgrade what should I buy/implement?

[john]

You want a KMS setup then, you install a server component on your server (Longhorn only at present, but 2003 SP2 version coming soon) and that authorises all your machines against it and it in turn says hiya to Microsoft. But you said Ramesys are not doing that so who knows what you need"!

[projector1]

whats KMS are MAK licenses?

[GeeDee]

Ok, not that I have the slightest intention of running Vista for as long as I can possibly hold off (volume activation and insanely ridiculous DRM being 2 of the main reasons, aside from it not being worth the money) - but if software licensing companies have single keys they are issuing to their education customers; what types of key are these?

If they're MAK keys, surely there should be seperate keys for each customer - or else it's pretty easy for 1 school to over-use more than they have paid for and knock the activation count down for other schools.

If they're not MAK keys then what are they? As I understand it, there's no such thing as a KMS 'key' - if you're a volume licensed customer, you can elect to either use MAK or KMS on a per-machine basis. Surely that leaves only retail / OEM?

Have I missed something or has nobody actually thought the whole process through here?

[DMcCoy]

There is a KMS key, I have one on the volume licensing site You need it for the kms server itself iirc

[GeeDee]

Ok, but that still doesn't answer my question. What exactly is it that the licensing companies are giving to their education customers at the moment?

[john]

Which ever you need I thought, but seems that, from here, that SSAT customers don't get a KMS solution, only MAK keys

[woody]

I rang up Ramesys today because we have ordered 30 vista licenses and 30 office 07 licenses. Not that I will be upgrading 30 of the school PCS to vista, about 25 of these licenses are actually for XP (Ramesys told me the latest os license covers all previous versions). But it will be nice to have a few spare vista licenses for testing. The first key Ramesys gave me didn't work - when I tried to validate, it told me it had already been used!

I rang them up and they told me they were aware of the problem, and that they were trying to sort out the problem with microsoft. A few days later, they sent me a different key by email. I used this one to activate and that was fine.

So when I rang today, I asked them to explain how the licensing works - ie do I use the same key for the number of licenses I have bought. The first resonce that worried me was - "Erm is that the key that starts with '22'?" Actually, the key I had started with '26' but it got me thinking that this key is doing the rounds with more than one school.

So if what has been mentioned on here is true, and that is an MAK key, then the 250 licenses are soon going to be up!