KMS Host (uninstalling on one server and installing on another) questions

[IT_Man_Dan]

Good afternoon all,

 

I haven't dealt with KMS before so please bear with me for my ignorance.

 

Long story short. I have Win Server 2008R2 DC's, and Win 7 Clients. A previous colleague of mine setup the main DC as a KMS Host for Windows and Office but we kept having issues with some clients not activating correctly so we reverted to MAK activation when re imaging. The KMS host is still running on the primary DC and I believe there is still machines out there activating from it. I now want to change back to KMS and set it all up myself on the secondary DC instead. I have the following questions.

 

1. Can I just set it up from scratch on the secondary DC and run it alongside the first to avoid any disruption and then uninstall the KMS host on the first?

2. How do you uninstall a KMS Host from a Win 2008R2 Server?

3. Do I simply set the new Windows KMS keys on the existing MAK activated clients to convert to KMS? slmgr.vbs /ipk *KmsKey* ?

 

Thanks for your advice.

[SHimmer45]

when i removed KMS from a test 2008r2 box i uninstalled the KMS key using slmgr.vbs stops the software activation service and then removed the published DNS entry for that server.

seems to work fine.

to change the clients from MAK to KMS you need the "generic KMS client keys"

this thread should be useful for you as it has the links in it for the keys on MS

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-7/41628-how-change-win-7-activation-mak-kms.html

 

also the VAMT tool for managing licenses you might find it easier than using the CLI interface as typing in the product keys and codes to view there status can be a pain (if you using one host to activate multiple products)

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=11936

Edited September 25, 2013 by SHimmer45

[sted]

i just removed the dns entry for the old server as it itself was activated with a kms key