Key management service problem.....

[mrbios]

This lovely simple 2 step job that is setting up a key management server is doing my nut in......

 

I've have a server setup as the KMS host, i've done /ipk with the KMS C key, i've followed that with /ato, ive made sure that under domain.local then _tcp folder contains the _srv record of _vlmcs._tcp and is directed to my KMS host

 

I can do:

nslookup

set q=srv

_vlmcs._tcp

 

on a client and on the host and it responds and directs to the correct location.

 

I have 29 machines currently sat in one room unable to activate.

 

The KMS host is on a different subnet to my clients, though my KMS host reports 11 as it's current count (from machines on another subnet i think), but after all of that it still reports that the client count on the server isn't good enough.

 

Where have i gone wrong/what have i missed/why am i about to kill someone with my rage!?!?!

[mrbios]

Well i assume everyone elses KMS hosts have just worked

 

When you do slmgr.vbs on a machine that hasn't activated via KMS but has a client KMS key on the host if you compare that too another machine should all the IDs be the same or should they all (or some) be different?

[SYNACK]

When you imaged the machines did you use sysprep /generalize on them, if not it will not have created new machine IDs and SIDs for each machine so the count will not go up and it will not reach its limit. Had this issue a while back with some laptops.

 

The only way around this is to do more hosts correctly so that the count goes up then the server will provide keys for all of them including the ones with the same machine ID or to reimage them with a generalized image or simply sysprep them all in place (just add an unattend file with the command to leave the drivers in place).

 

Edit: The client KMS keys should all be the same but the machine IDs should all be different, you can check this by looking at the KMS event log on the KMS server and checking to see if the machine IDs of the requests are different for each hostname. If not you are experiencing this issue.

[mrbios]

I may have found the issue, i did indeed do sysprep /generalize, but the sysprep rearm count is at zero, if i do a little cheeky hack in order to rearm one then the client count goes up......had i known this prior to making my windows 7 image i wouldn't of made that mistake, luckily though the cheeky little hack should do the trick if i do it then re-sysprep.. as there is not a chacne in hell im remaking that image again!

[SYNACK]

As you have generalized them if you can rearm them then run "slmgr /ato" it should work without a sysprep. It should probably work by just doing a /ato on the clients, you could even point it out directly to them by specifying the server "slmgr -skms servername" then fireing off an ato. At any rate it should be solvable.

 

KMS Activation in Cambridge

[mrbios]

Well i have another 300-400 machines to image (already done 100 or so) so i'm hacking one apart then re-syspreping in order to take a new image that should work straight out of the box, then i'll no doubt go around the others one by one to get them sorted as well (may jsut reimage them to avoid the hassle)