Office 2010 Re-arm / Duplicate CMID

[tech_]

Hi All,

 

Here is the scenario.

 

Each time office is rearmed, it generates a unique CMID and lessens the remaining re-arm count by one.

 

We re-arm office before capturing an image. When this image is updated, we rearm office again before capturing it and so on.

 

Eventually, we will get to a point where we will no longer be able to re-arm office 2010 as you are only allowed to re-arm office 5 times.

 

If you capture an image without re-arming Office, you will have Office 2010 installations with the same CMID.

 

Will a KMS Server still be able to activate clients with duplicate CMIDs?

 

Thank you in advance for your help

[k-strider]

As long as you don't run office after rearming it you shouldn't need to rearm it every time you recreate the image.

When i first installed office 2010 i didn't know about rearming it, and so none of my copies activated until i rearmed 5 computers then they did all activate.

[tech_]

Thanks for your reply.

 

Do you know if removing office and installing it again resets the rearm counter?. I would assume NO.

 

Will multiple installations of Office not activate via KMS if they have the same CMID?

Edited November 13, 2012 by tech_

[k-strider]

mine seemed to activate but it was a long time ago and i no longer have any with the same CMID just as long as you have more than the threshold of five different ones.

not sure about reinstalling, though its testable as im sure you can get the CMID out of the KMS server logs.

[ChrisMiles]

Hi All,

 

Here is the scenario.

 

Each time office is rearmed, it generates a unique CMID and lessens the remaining re-arm count by one.

 

We re-arm office before capturing an image. When this image is updated, we rearm office again before capturing it and so on.

 

Eventually, we will get to a point where we will no longer be able to re-arm office 2010 as you are only allowed to re-arm office 5 times.

 

If you capture an image without re-arming Office, you will have Office 2010 installations with the same CMID.

 

Will a KMS Server still be able to activate clients with duplicate CMIDs?

 

Thank you in advance for your help

 

KMS activiated Windows/Office deployments do not have a re-arm limit. Only MAC/Retail activated deployments have that limit.

[FN-GM]

If i want to deploy an image with Office 2010 on i assume i just rearm it then capture the image? Then when its deployed all the machines from the image will just activate via KMS? Thanks

[eddyc]

If i want to deploy an image with Office 2010 on i assume i just rearm it then capture the image? Then when its deployed all the machines from the image will just activate via KMS? Thanks

 

Hi FN-GM,

 

Yes that is right - just ensure that you re-arm office before capturing the image, otherwise office will fail to active off of the KMS! :-)

[FN-GM]

Cheers. I have never put it on the image, i used to install Office after the image was deployed. I am putting it on the image to save time.

[chazzy2501]

ooops, didn't know about rearming office 2010! Just to be clear do I need to rearm an KMS activated Office when I image a PC? (as this is NOT what I've been doing for 4 weeks now)

 

No complaints about dodgy office mind;)

 

 

Oh I just this second KMS activated a copy of office from one of my non-rearmed office(es) VAMT didn't complain?

 

EDIT: from what I'm reading failing to rearm office won't stop it activating but will stop the KMS server from incrementing it's count, an issue if you haven't got the count high enough!

Edited July 16, 2013 by chazzy2501

[Duke5A]

I just stumbled upon this thread and realized this is something I don't do. Checking the logs on the KMS tells me all the clients have the same CMID. It hasn't been a problem though because the activation threshold on the KMS was reached while testing Office on various staff machines before it was incorporated into the image. So, is this even a problem? Office activates normally on every machine we deploy.

[tech_]

Hi Duke5A, We were doing it the same way that you are now (Putting the office install on the image). We did not have any problems although every office install did have the same CMID. This did not cause an issue regarding activation as we had already reached the threshold of unique requests. I decided to play it safe and deploy office instead via a task sequence just to avoid any potential issues in the future. In all honesty however, I don't think you will experience a problem although I cant be certain. Hopefully somebody here knows the exact answer?

[Duke5A]

Hi Duke5A, We were doing it the same way that you are now (Putting the office install on the image). We did not have any problems although every office install did have the same CMID. This did not cause an issue regarding activation as we had already reached the threshold of unique requests. I decided to play it safe and deploy office instead via a task sequence just to avoid any potential issues in the future. In all honesty however, I don't think you will experience a problem although I cant be certain. Hopefully somebody here knows the exact answer?

 

Yeah, exact same thing here. We operated like that for over a year and never saw anything adverse happen. Clients activated happily and never complained. I did however change the sysprep answer file in my image to force Office to rearm and activate after imaging. All future imaged machines will now have a unique CMID. The following was placed in the FirstLogonCommands in the oobeSystem pass:

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform\OSPPREARM.EXE

 

cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ospp.vbs" /act