Windows 10 Deployement Help
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MS licensing allows you to us VL media on OEM licenses as long as the version is exactly the same.
i.e. OEM Windows 10 Pro, VL Windows 10 Pro - same version.
So you can create images using VL media to be deployed to OEM only licensed machines.
But - we through the wrench in that the machines are currently licenses with Windows 8.1 Pro. So the first thing you have to do is go through the legal process of upgrading them to Windows 10 Pro. To do this, you have to either upgrade Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 using OEM media OR as you're now allowed to do, install from scratch Windows 10 using OEM media (because Win10 will pull the 8.1 key for you from BIOS and perform the activation/upgrade process for you).
Once you have performed an upgrade/activation process on your OEM license, you have a legal OEM copy of Windows 10 Pro attached to that machine. Now you can deploy your VL media based license to the machine.
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@Dashrender said:
MS licensing allows you to us VL media on OEM licenses as long as the version is exactly the same.
i.e. OEM Windows 10 Pro, VL Windows 10 Pro - same version.
So you can create images using VL media to be deployed to OEM only licensed machines.
But - we through the wrench in that the machines are currently licenses with Windows 8.1 Pro. So the first thing you have to do is go through the legal process of upgrading them to Windows 10 Pro. To do this, you have to either upgrade Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 using OEM media OR as you're now allowed to do, install from scratch Windows 10 using OEM media (because Win10 will pull the 8.1 key for you from BIOS and perform the activation/upgrade process for you).
Once you have performed an upgrade/activation process on your OEM license, you have a legal OEM copy of Windows 10 Pro attached to that machine. Now you can deploy your VL media based license to the machine.
Right, so why bother installing twice? Clean install and licensed via OEM. Yes, Imaging is nice, but unless you can activate it is not good.
But it seems @hobbit666 did activate OEM (BIOS) with the VL media? If so, then just grabbing the GenuineTicket.xml prior to the imaging will get you activated for any of them that are not BIOS enabled.
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@JaredBusch said:
Right, so why bother installing twice? Clean install and licensed via OEM. Yes, Imaging is nice, but unless you can activate it is not good.
You can activate the image, with the two step process I mentioned above (upgrade/fresh install from OEM - activate w/MS, wipe and push image - activate via MAK or KMS)
But it seems @hobbit666 did activate OEM (BIOS) with the VL media? If so, then just grabbing the GenuineTicket.xml prior to the imaging will get you activated for any of them that are not BIOS enabled.
This was a misunderstanding. @hobbit666 did not activate with VL media - his original test machines were with OEM media.
@hobbit666 said:
No that would of been using OEM install media not the VL
only tested the deploy image on the test PC -
@Dashrender said:
You can activate the image, with the two step process I mentioned above (upgrade/fresh install from OEM - activate w/MS, wipe and push image - activate via MAK or KMS)
Well it should automatically activate because of the hardware being authorized at this point. No need to activate via MAK or KMS (technically the Win10 auto activation is KMS to MS servers).
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I'm not sure if it's technically KMS or not, but it's not overly relevant either.
But MS could easily not allow VL media based images to activate with anything other than a MAK or KMS server.
I guess you'll have to load one up and try it.
But the whole reason for using VL media is because legally you can't image OEM software, you must use VL media for images.
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@Dashrender said:
I'm not sure if it's technically KMS or not, but it's not overly relevant either.
But MS could easily not allow VL media based images to activate with anything other than a MAK or KMS server.
I guess you'll have to load one up and try it.
But the whole reason for using VL media is because legally you can't image OEM software, you must use VL media for images.
Right. I just do not want to have to upgrade then image. it is annoying. I will be testing out VL stuff for certain. I have a couple machines to be upgrade. I'll generate the GenuineTicket.xml and first and then simply install 10 clean from VL media and see if it activates without or with the GenuineTicket.xml. If not, I'll clean install with the normal Windows 10 image.
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@JaredBusch said:
Right. I just do not want to have to upgrade then image. it is annoying. I will be testing out VL stuff for certain. I have a couple machines to be upgrade. I'll generate the GenuineTicket.xml and first and then simply install 10 clean from VL media and see if it activates without or with the GenuineTicket.xml. If not, I'll clean install with the normal Windows 10 image.
Let me know how you get on
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You asked so I did it.
I pulled the GenuineTicket.xml file from Windows 8.1, then installed Win10 using VL media. This laptop does have the Windows key in the BIOS, but it didn't auto activate. So I put the GenuineTicket.xml file in place, rebooted - nope still not activated.
This means you can not skip the step of either doing a normal upgrade, or fresh install using OEM media to upgrade the license.
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@Dashrender said:
You asked so I did it.
I pulled the GenuineTicket.xml file from Windows 8.1, then installed Win10 using VL media. This laptop does have the Windows key in the BIOS, but it didn't auto activate. So I put the GenuineTicket.xml file in place, rebooted - nope still not activated.
This means you can not skip the step of either doing a normal upgrade, or fresh install using OEM media to upgrade the license.
Sad, because the imaging process is much faster than the install process. But it is certainly still a solid method. Was jsut hoping to slim the process down a bit more.
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@JaredBusch said:
Sad, because the imaging process is much faster than the install process. But it is certainly still a solid method. Was jsut hoping to slim the process down a bit more.
Same here was hoping to skip the upgrade process and just deploy the image.
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OK so got a Windows 7 OEM COA machine. In-Place upgraded to Windows 10 let it activate.
Deployed my "Gold" image of windows 10 that was created with the VL media. But it doesn't activate. So i'm guessing a call to MS today to get them to add the KMS key and get one setup
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Need to try the process on a Windows 8 BIOS key machine next
see what happens. -
As I mentioned several posts ago - Win10 VL will not activate against MS servers unless you put in a MAK key.
I guess it's good we have two people seeing the same results.
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Yeah sorry looked over the posts and picked that up lol. Until I have 25 machines ready for deployment i'm going to use the MAK key. Then look at KMS server once we upgrade some of the servers here to Server2012
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You can use VAMT 3 to deploy keys, once you get to 25 machine, you can switch them from MAK to KMS keys.
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@Dashrender said:
You can use VAMT 3 to deploy keys, once you get to 25 machine, you can switch them from MAK to KMS keys.
Can I use VAMT for the MAK/KMS keys or will I need a full KMS server. Just installed a new Windows 2012 Server VM on the ESXi host to set-up RADIUS on and thought might as well do the licensing server on it too
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@hobbit666 said:
@Dashrender said:
You can use VAMT 3 to deploy keys, once you get to 25 machine, you can switch them from MAK to KMS keys.
Can I use VAMT for the MAK/KMS keys or will I need a full KMS server. Just installed a new Windows 2012 Server VM on the ESXi host to set-up RADIUS on and thought might as well do the licensing server on it too
Well, you'll need a KMS server to hand out KMS keys (which I would say - yes you should use KMS). VAMT is mainly used for auditing, but can also be used to change already deployed keys from one to another.
So you could roll out Windows 10 slowly, and when you get to 25 deployed, you spin up VAMT, change those 25 all to KMS keys... then those 25 machines will check in with the KMS server and activate. Activate might take a few hours - FYI.
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@Dashrender said:
@hobbit666 said:
@Dashrender said:
You can use VAMT 3 to deploy keys, once you get to 25 machine, you can switch them from MAK to KMS keys.
Can I use VAMT for the MAK/KMS keys or will I need a full KMS server. Just installed a new Windows 2012 Server VM on the ESXi host to set-up RADIUS on and thought might as well do the licensing server on it too
Well, you'll need a KMS server to hand out KMS keys (which I would say - yes you should use KMS). VAMT is mainly used for auditing, but can also be used to change already deployed keys from one to another.
So you could roll out Windows 10 slowly, and when you get to 25 deployed, you spin up VAMT, change those 25 all to KMS keys... then those 25 machines will check in with the KMS server and activate. Activate might take a few hours - FYI.
Yeah just been doing what I should before posting.....READ! just read all that apart from in Microsoft Language
you explained what they say over a few pages in a few lines lol.Yeah think I'm going to be close to the 25 mark very soon and will be able to use VAMT to change the keys as you said.
So now more reading on getting a KMS server running and more importantly who I phone to get the keys on the VL Centre site.
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If you will be at 25 or more machines inside of 25 days, you can use the KMS client keys now and not worry about using the MAK keys ever.
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OK so I've got my Windows 10 image done and working as I want
some little tweeks here and there over the next few weeks as I deploy and woop.Question on licensing just to cover my ass!
So I bought 1x Windows 10 Pro Volume License. As I understand this gives me the right to deploy that image using the MAK/KMS key to any OEM computer of the same version? i.e. when I buy a Windows 10 Pro Laptop or Desktop I can "deploy" this image legally?
As I also correct in thinking if I upgrade a machine Windows 7 Pro with a OEM COA or a Windows 8 Pro with BIOS key to Windows 10 activate it under the "FREE" offer from Microsoft I can still legally "deploy" this gold image?
Final Question how does this effect a SAM audit? Do I still give them the COA keys and say we "upgraded" during the offer period, then used the VL Image??
