Best posts made by Chris

I am not 100% sure on this, but I believe you need the 5+ installs of Office 2016 for KMS to activate the clients.
You can cohost the Office 2013 KMS host and the Office 2016 KMS host on the same system. Its my understanding that the Office 2013 KMS host will only activate Office 2013 clients.

@DustinB3403 said:

OK Chris Up Vote this if it's right.

If the user of the Windows VM is at the hardware device that is running the VM. Generally a type 2 hypervisor, such as VirtualBox, a retail key is acceptable. but so is SA and VDA.

If the users are remotely accessing the VM, then SA or VDA are required. (one or the other)

There are *caveats to this statement. But generally correct.
*You can license Windows VDA for a device to run the VM locally, but only if that device has a Windows 7 Pro version or better. Otherwise, yes you can use a full retail license of Windows to run locally on the device OR Windows SA.

@BRRABill said:

So I guess the question for @chris is:

What are the MS rules when it comes to disaster recovery? Again, we are only talking about using a BMR (which also requires activation) or a VM in a disaster recovery scenario.

It would probably be good to know both about server and desktop OSes as both can be backed up using these products.

There are no "disaster recovery" rights with Windows desktop OS licensing.
As Scott mentioned, licensing a Windows desktop OS VM from a server requires a license from Microsoft in this scenario. The license options are either Windows SA or Windows VDA depending on the device and OS installed. There is a ton of documentation on this topic.
I wrote a how-to on this here: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124053-licensing-windows-10-with-virtualization-technologies-how-to
Microsoft has a VL brief on this topic here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/learn-more/brief-windows-virtual-machine.aspx

LMK what additional questions you have.

@scottalanmiller TY Sir! Appreciate the invite!

@BRRABill said:

@Chris said:

LMK what additional questions you have.

So for a BMR, in the case of open license, it's not an issue because you can just reassign the license, right? But in the case of an OEM license, is it true that in the case of total failure Microsoft will allow you to reinstall to new hardware? Is that true?

And in the case of a VM. You are saying that if I want to spin up a copy of my image just to make sure it is backing up properly and accessible, I need an additional license for that?

No you can't reassign an Open License of Windows desktop OS. There are NO transfer or reassignment rights with Windows desktop OS Upgrade licenses via VL. I wrote an article on this here: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124052-transferring-and-reassigning-windows-10-licensing-how-to
Additionally, NO, you can't move the OEM license to a replacement device, EVER. Even if the mobo dies, (unless you get an identical mobo) you need a new OEM Windows license.

When licensing VDI, you don't license the server for Windows VDA or Windows SA - just the client accessing devices.

@BRRABill what I posted was for Windows desktop OS, not server.

@scottalanmiller said:

FPP could be used for all devices with an FPP license, of course. But can you use FPP media for an OEM machine without VL reimaging rights?

@Chris

Correct. See OEM downgrade steps process for example: http://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/downgrade_rights.aspx#fbid=_RodMIe4Mhw

@scottalanmiller said:

@BRRABill said:

THOUGH ... if a am technically allowed to run Windows 10, and get a VL key for 1 (buying 1 Windows 10 Upgrade VL), could I just go that route? Or is that what you are saying?

That is not one that I know the answer to. If you could have manually upgraded and you have the reimaing rights, does that cover you? I believe that the consensus is "no", but I am not sure myself of the source of that information.

That might be a @chris question.

You have reimaging rights with Windows 10 Pro, but your devices need to be licensed with Windows 10 Pro first before you use your Windows 10 Pro VL media/key as part of the free upgrade offer to Windows 10. The exception is for qualifying VL agreement customers. Select, EA and MPSA customers can skip the upgrade install step and go straight to using their VL media and keys to upgrade.