@Mario-Jakovina said in Is it legal? Windows 10 or 11 as a server:

Why would anyone "be happy to report client" to any other vendor (here Microsoft) for violating any agreements between you customer and other vendor?

That's not what is being reported. The thing being discussed is violating the contract between the client and the vendor, for which @CCWTech is a legal representative. This is a business partner relationship and not reporting it would be a violation of the partnership.

Think of it like if you and a friend opened a cafe together. You own 90%, your partner owns 10%. A thief steals from you but only your partner witnesses it. They steal enough to qualify as grand theft (this isn't a petty situation like a candy bar or a coffee, this is more like someone stealing the espresso machine) and your partner knows about it. Would you be okay with your partner not telling you and not informing the accountants to write off the loss? Of course not, he'd be helping steal if he did. He has a business responsibility legally and ethically. You don't have to prosecute the thief if you decide not to, but you have a legal right to know that it happened and your accounting team needs that information for tax reasons and other data analytics.

@scottalanmiller Weird I haven't see that, that is a new one for me.

@flaxking said in Microsoft Resellers:

Great experience with Insight Canada account managers. Not so great experience with CDW.

Ingram Micro and Synnex were ok, RMAs always were a pita.

In the US we have to use Insight Canada for account managers. And they were terrible. We've had so many customers totally screwed because they lost their licenses, had no way to be reached. At one point, even Microsoft had no way to reach Insight!

There's a good bit of dysfunction going on, such as two weeks after starting to look into what's needed for configuration manager there's still no authoritative answer on "talk to this person to see what Microsoft licensing we have." 😛

I'm trying to get an idea of what's needed myself, and most of what I found is in relation to those who already have System Center and having current SA entitles you to Configuration Manager Current Branch.

I won't have any Win 7 systems by that time. At least that is the goal. I was thinking it was Jan 20, 2020. Guess I just confabulated that based on the year being 2020. Still have about 40 systems to issue to replace them.

Looks like Microsoft finally allowing licenses to be used in hosting services in a way that doesn't mean purchasing a license for every server at the host, but only for a select few places. I'll grant you that they are the major hosting providers, but that still leaves out a bunch of our favorites around here.

I was only looking at exchange online plan 1, but possibly also Azure AD functionality since I was getting into O365 by a toe.

@ilyas said in Reset 120 Day Grace Period for Windows RDS Server with PowerShell:

@scottalanmiller

Hi, Thanks for wonderful script that save my time.
Could You please guide me how we can run this script on multiple servers?

I tried foreach PowerShell method but it does not work.

From the ISE, load the script and then enter-pssession for each system. Once connected, run the script from the ise. Sorted.

@Obsolesce said in What Happens When Microsoft Doesn't Issue Licenses:

@scottalanmiller said in What Happens When Microsoft Doesn't Issue Licenses:

So the reset and query tool that Microsoft provide do not work (they don't claim that they do in 2016, just that they thought that they would.) They report that all is well, and then RDS fails anyway. So there is both the licensing issue, and an issue with a lack of working tooling.

Next time do it properly?

And not use Microsoft? We did everything we were supposed to do, Microsoft messed it up. Short of not using anything that depends on Windows, what's the solution? Right now Insight and Microsoft are still going back and forth blaming each other.

Unfortunately, not using Windows isn't something we control. But without being able to control that, having a reliable product isn't always something IT determines.

@scottalanmiller
This may also help:
https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn/myth-busting-software-asset-management-and-compliance-audits/?ln=en-us
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/learn-more/compliance-verification-faq

Things like:

Microsoft SAM programs are voluntary services... A compliance audit is a mandatory review of a company’s use of Microsoft’s products and services...
These compliance verifications are initiated across less than 5% of Microsoft’s licensing customers worldwide

But ignoring things like:

We believe that SAM can be a strategic advantage for all our customers

@pmoncho said in The Hidden Cost of Licensing Windows Server - Activation:

@scottalanmiller said in The Hidden Cost of Licensing Windows Server - Activation:

Just looking at this with a customer that just put in a new Windows 2019 server. The machine was purchased with a volume license agreement for Server 2019 Standard. Everything should be super easy, in theory. Problem is, license key from the volume license center doesn't work. We spend a bit of time trying to get this to apply, but no luck.

I have run into a similar situation this morning and not being able activate the VLSC liscense.

Before I decided to call MS and getting frustrated, I was able to activate from an elevated command line.
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk <product key>

Throwing this out here in case someone comes along this post at a later time.

I've heard that that often works. We had tried that in our case and it had failed.

@dbeato said in Using Windows 10 Public ISO with VLSC MAK:

Sot it just activated it right?

Yup.

Thanks all

@scottalanmiller said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@jaredbusch said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@dave247 said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@jaredbusch said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@dave247 said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@jaredbusch said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@dave247 said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@phlipelder said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

@dave247 said in Need some help with SQL Server 2016 Standard licensing (price confusion):

Hi friends.

I am working on building a new physical server to replace one which is running older versions of Windows and SQL server, plus it is almost out of storage space so this needs to be done sooner than later.

This SQL server is running a 3rd party application and they currently only support up to SQL 2016, so that's what I have to install - not 2017. And it's going to be SQL 2016 Standard Edition running on Windows 2016 Server Standard with 16 cores.

I spent a while researching SQL sever licensing to try and get an idea of how much it's going to cost. I haven't dealt with SQL server licensing yet.

First, I assumed that I would still have to purchase SQL Server 2017 core licenses with downgrade rights. So looking on the SQL Sever Pricing page, it looks as though Standard - per core price is $3,717 (2 pack). So if my server has a total of 16 cores, this is going to cost about $29,736 to cover SQL licensing.

Then I checked over on CDW just to get an idea of prices and things and I had the idea to search "SQL 2016" when I found this: SQL Server 2016 Standard - license - 16 cores - with Server 2016 Standard for like $1,900.

Is this even applicable to what I'm doing or am I missing something? It does say in the technical details "BIOS locked (Lenovo)" but I have no idea what that refers to. But other than that, it looks like it's licensing SQL Server 2016 for 16 cores and bundled with Windows Server 2016. Surly this can't be correct... or is it? If it is actually what I would need to be covered, I would purchase it, of course.

Otherwise, can someone help me get an idea of what I should be paying for SQL Server 2016 Standard Edition for 16 cores if not the cost I initially calculated ($29,736)? And I don't think we'd do the server + cal licensing as we have about 80 users and 100 or more systems which would connect to the SQL server.

Simple rule of thumb to ask your Microsoft licensing rep for the following:
First option is license + CALs that allows internal access only with unlimited instances on the server and unlimited cores:

SQL Server Standard License SQL Server Standard User CALs (80 Users)

Second option is per core with a minimum of 4 to purchase:

SQL Server Standard Per Core 2-Pack (2x)

In the Per Core scenario we can license for the number of physical cores to use and delimit that in SQL Studio Management. When it comes to audit, a snip of that setting that only allows the four threads should be just fine.

So if you license + CAL, do you have to cover all users AND computers?

If you license by user you cover users. If you license by device you cover devices.

Well what constitutes as a device? I mean, users use a device to connect to the SQL server... so wouldn't I have to cover both? I don't get it.

That is never how Microsoft CALs have worked.

ok, I finally re-read the overview.. makes sense again. We have a pretty even user/device ratio with slight fluctuations in both over time. I suppose we'd just do user CALs..

There is almost no reason for anyone in the normal, day to day, business world to use device CALs.

Agreed, this is super specific niche stuff normally reserved for manufacturing shift work.

We have a few clients that run two or three shifts across one or more facilities. A shared device by two or three peeps per day is about the only time we've ever deployed Device CALs.

@dustinb3403 said in Verifying MS SQL Server 2017 Licensing:

@jaredbusch said in Verifying MS SQL Server 2017 Licensing:

@scottalanmiller said in Verifying MS SQL Server 2017 Licensing:

@jaredbusch said in Verifying MS SQL Server 2017 Licensing:

@scottalanmiller said in Verifying MS SQL Server 2017 Licensing:

@jaredbusch one of the complications is that there IS no virtual core. vCPU is NOT core.

a vCPU has vCores. Always. It might just be one. That is how it works.

Not in any system I've seen. What people call vCores are actually vCPUs. The vCPU might tell the OS it has multiple cores, but the idea of a vCore has never existed, only vCPUs. Vmware, KVM, etc. all the same. Core means physical, it's like having a physical virtual, it cancels itself out.

I am almost certain that VMWare lets you make a 1 CPU VM with 2 cores.

Hyper-V just says virtual processors.
0_1536703623096_9bebc766-93a2-498e-aa75-f621eb5bb0da-image.png

KVM says CPUs.
0_1536703642847_0252def6-e3e4-40f0-93ec-98417b2bb6ff-image.png

But I very clearly remember some hypervisor letting me specify a vCPU and vCores.

XenServer and XCP-ng also allow this.

1cpu 2 core etc.

Topology lets you state presented cores, not vCores. Totally different things.

Everything detailed it here:

https://products.office.com/en-us/exchange/microsoft-exchange-server-licensing-licensing-overview
0_1516728320966_test.PNG

@scottalanmiller said in MS Licensing - 3rd:

Just search "Windows 7 vdi licensing" and the MS PDF is the first hit.

So that's where they hide it... in the EULA of a separate product or whatever you want to call it.

But yeah, it's pretty clear in there.

@dashrender said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@jaredbusch said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@msff-amman-itofficer said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@jaredbusch said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@msff-amman-itofficer said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@jaredbusch said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@msff-amman-itofficer said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@tim_g

@tim_g said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

@msff-amman-itofficer said in How Many Windows Server VMs Can You Run on Hyper-V SAMIT Video:

Oh and they provide the hyper v integration as cab file (guest agent):
windows6.x-hypervintegrationservices-x64.cab
I cant belive I complained when VIRT IO Tools was repackaged some time ago and they changed some folders in there ISO image, while MS gives you a .cab file and not even an executable.

What do you mean? What VM are you trying to install? You shouldn't need any integration tools at all for any modern operating system on a VM. They come built in and are updated via Windows Update (if running Windows OS)

If you install RHEL or CentOS, you can download a Linux Integration Services .ISO if you need to. You simply run the ./install.sh file. All other modern Linux OSs already have the Hyper-V Integration built in to the kernel.

This is what i am talking about:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/help/3063109/hyper-v-integration-components-update-for-windows-virtual-machines

Method 2: Microsoft Download Center

The following files are available for download from the Microsoft Download Center.

Operating system Update
All supported x86-based versions of Windows 8.1 Download Download the package now.
All supported x64-based versions of Windows 8.1 Download Download the package now.
All supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2012 R2 Download Download the package now.
All supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2012 Download Download the package now.
All supported x86-based versions of Windows 7 Download Download the package now.
All supported x64-based versions of Windows 7 Download Download the package now.
All supported x64-based versions of Windows Server 2008 R2 Download Download the package now.

Go to the download, and it is all .cab files.

WTF are you talking about. This is not DVD media. You are doing it wrong from the beginning.

Ofcourse I know this is not DVD media, those are the Hyper-V agents that MS wants you to install on your guest machine, MS calls them Hyper-V integration components.

ESXi and KVM Virt IO all provides much better ways to get this installed on your guest machines, and dont provide you a dumb .cab file.

Just because you are not capable of providing a share to get access the files from within the VM does not mean the process is stupid.

Who wants to mount ISO files from the hypervisor all the time just to update software in a guest VM? That is the stupid thing.

Okay, granted what are the commands to create share in Windows hyper-V standalone? I tried and failed, or the only way to do so is to have share outside hyper-V like NAS ? if so both KVM and ESXi can be easier in sending files directly to the host.

I dont want to go to fight about who is the best Virtualization platform cause that is pointless, but my trial wit Hyper-V is everything required 2 extra steps to get it configured. While the competition it can be done with one step.

Why are you trying to put these files on the hypervisor? They have no need to be on the hypervisor. You cannot download them there anyway why are you trying to put them there? The guest VM does not care where they are shared from. Just put them someplace accessible. or even download them directly in the guest VM.

I am not arguing best hypervisor platform. I am simply stating you are doing things wrong and causing your own problems.

I'm guessing that he might be saying that he has no NAS, and doesn't want to create a share from his desktop machine to make those ISOs available to the hypervisor.

ESXi allows you to have a folder on the DataStore that you can then reference. I did this for my ESXi server. Same goes for my XS, I had a local piece of storage on the hypervisor for ISOs.

I don't see an actual issue with this. The biggest one I seem is that you might be using more expensive disk to store ISOs instead of storing them on a NAS.

And Hyper-V lets you access share a folder too. It is all windows, so the admin share is there and active.

\\hypervservername\c$\somefolder

@scottalanmiller said in where to find free hyper-v product key:

@JaredBusch said in where to find free hyper-v product key:

No one should ever be buying OEM server licensing today.

Or in the past really, either.

Pre virtualization, it really did save a little money because you left it on that server till it died anyway. Most SMB would never reuse it. By the time their server died, they would be getting a new OS anyway. There was little point in going to VLSC back then for the SMB