Windows Vista product activation for volume license customers

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 18 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Working mostly with corporate clients has one significant advantage – I’ve largely been shielded from Windows product activation, as I’ve generally had access to volume licence keys (VLKs) – also known as volume activation (VA) 1.0; however with Windows Vista and VA 2.0, this looks set to change and there seems to be a lot of misinformation on the subject (e.g. rumours of enterprises having to run licence servers on Windows Longhorn Server, which is still a beta product and hence not recommended for production use). With that in mind, I thought I’d write a bit on the subject to (hopefully) clear up any confusion.

At a Microsoft event today, Microsoft UK’s James O’Neill was reluctant to discuss this (in my experience, Microsoft consultants and evangelists do tend to shy away from anything remotely related to licencing) but luckily I got chatting to Scotty McLeod from Perot Systems, who was extremely helpful and knowledgeable on the subject.

Scotty explained to me (and others) how the arrangements for corporate product activation will work. Basically, Microsoft has two systems for volume license customers:

  • Multiple activation keys (MAKs) will be made available, with each key valid for a defined number of installations. Activation will require contact to Microsoft servers and, once the maximum number of activations has been reached, the key will be prevented from activating any further copies of Windows. That sounds fair enough but these keys should be guarded closely (more closely than traditional VLKs) because if a key is leaked and administrators do install unofficially, Microsoft is unlikely to “unlicence” a machine. In effect, if you release the key and it gets misused, then it’s your problem!
  • Volume licence keys (VLKs) require that an organisation maintains its own key management server (KMS) – ideally two – to act as a proxy between Microsoft’s licencing servers and enterprise clients, validating and activating Windows Vista computers. Each client actively searches out an appropriate KMS for activation, which must occur within 30 days, retrying every 22 hours. If activation fails, then the installation will run in reduced functionality mode (RFM). Then, every 180 days, the Windows Vista computer will reactivate, with a 30 day grace period before reduced functionality mode is enforced. Effectively, Windows Vista machines will need to reactivate approximately every 6 months. Group policy can be used to control the warnings experienced by users.

So, when would administrators want to use MAKs and when would they use VLKs? MAKs only require activation once (unless there are a lot of hardware changes) and so are ideal for organisations with a dispersed user population that rarely contacts the corporate network. For the majority of users in most organisations that regularly connect to a corporate network then VLKs will probably be more appropriate.

There are some gotchas with VLKs though – for example, a multinational organisation with local purchasing policies will probably have many volume license agreements and will need to implement 2 KMS servers per territory. This is for two reasons:

  • To retain control and stop one territory from using all the licences purchased by another.
  • Because license prices vary globally and licencing terms generally prevent low cost licenses from one territory from being deployed in another.

KMSs also require Windows Vista or Windows Server codenamed Longhorn – with installation being performed via a script within the operating system installation (no GUI interface is provided). Fortunately, Microsoft also provides web-based reporting tools for VLKs, including computer names and how long is left until license expiry. One more positive aspect of the VLK arrangements is that if a licence is not successfully reactivated, then it returns to the pool – so if a laptop is stolen, then at least the licence will be returned within six months or so!

So, that’s Windows Vista product activation for corporate users in a nutshell. The Microsoft website has more information on VA 2.0 (as well as an FAQ) and there’s a My Digital Life article that also has information on the software protection platform (SPP), which is the version of product activation that users who are not subject to volume licence agreements will encounter.

Finding out how Windows product activation works

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

Most of the work I do with Microsoft software is carried out for clients who have a volume license agreement, so working with OEM copies of Windows Server 2003 R2 over the last week or so has been my first exposure to Windows product activation. After having built and activated a server, then wondering whether blowing it away and starting again would affect the activation status I found Alex Nichol’s description of Windows product activation on Windows XP (it’s basically he same for Windows Server 2003 R2). I decided not to rebuild the server in the end but Alex’s article was a certainly a useful description of how the activation process works and the hardware changes that can affect the validity of the software.

Tracking Windows server product licenses

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

I just had a call from a client who was concerned that he couldn’t add client access licences (CALs ) for his new Exchange Server in the Licensing administrative tool. I’ve never really used this tool so I had to do some research before I could answer his question. Microsoft knowledge base article 824196 describes the license logging service (LLS) but the key points to note are all in the article summary:

  • LLS was originally designed to help administrators manage licenses for Microsoft server products that are licensed on a per-server basis (the server CAL model).
  • LLS was introduced with Windows NT Server 3.51 but it is disabled by default in Windows Server 2003.
  • Because of design constraints and evolving licencing terms, LLS cannot provide an accurate view of the total number of per-user CALs purchased, compared with the total number of CALs that are used on a single server or across the enterprise.
  • LLS will not be included in future versions of the Windows operating system.

Basically, it seems that LLS is a hangover from Windows NT and nowadays there is no real reason to use it in Windows Server 2003.

Why open source software is not really free

Posted on By Mark Wilson
This content is 19 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

There’s a common misconception that open source software is free – as in doesn’t cost anything – and conversely that proprietary software is expensive.

I’d often wondered how this was aligned with the sale of packaged distributions of free software (it turns out I’m not the only one – a UK trading standards department were also confused by the sale of Firefox CDs – thanks to Slashdot via Slashdot Review for causing me to laugh out loud about that one…). Actually, it turns out that open source software is only free as in free speech – not as in free of charge. Sometimes it is free of charge too, but the two most common open source licensing models (GNU and BSD) do not prohibit the sale of “free software”.

GNU (a recursive name – GNU’s Not Unix) is a project, started by Richard Stallman in 1984 to create a free Unix clone, managed by the free software foundation (GNU/Linux is the kernel developed as a result of that project). GNU’s definition of free software says in part:

    • The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
    • The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
    • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
    • The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

    2. “Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere…

    …’free software’ does not mean ‘non-commercial’.”

The GNU general public license (GPL) encourages free software, but all enhancements and changes to GPL software must also be left as GPL. In effect, the software is free to enhance, but not necessarily free to purchase.

Where code is derived from the University of California at Berkeley BSD project, a separate licensing agreement applies. Many commercial software vendors prefer to use the BSD license, because it lets them wrap open source code up in a proprietary product. As Linux Format magazine paraphrased this month, “In a nutshell, the BSD licence says, ‘do what you like with the code – just don’t claim you wrote it'”. The BSD code would still be free, but the developers don’t have to release all of the source code for the entire product.

Whilst I’m writing about non-copyright licensing agreements, it’s worth mentioning creative commons. Not limited to software products, this is a licensing alternative to copyright for all creative works, building on the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach.

I’m really interested in the rise of Linux as an alternative to Windows; however it’s not about stripping out software purchase costs. Purchasing a version of Linux with a predictable development cycle and a support entitlement (e.g. Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Novell/SUSE Linux Enterprise) can be just as (or even significantly more) expensive as a copy of Windows and management costs need to be considered too. For as long as the majority of IT organisations are geared up to provide almost exclusively Windows support, Linux support costs will be higher too.