Office 2010 Clients Stop Activating via KMS After Migration to Windows Server 2012 R2
Bottom line: Make sure you properly migrate Office KMS activation when you migrate the KMS server.
Environment:
Windows 7 Enterprise clients with Office Professional Plus 2010
KMS role migrated from Windows 2008 R2 to Windows 2012 R2 over a month before
Issue: Customer reported that about 40 days after KMS migration, the installation team found that new Office 2010 clients couldn't activate. On further investigation, we also found that existing Office clients hadn't been able to renew their activation status for the past 40 days.
Investigation:
- After building the Windows 2012 R2 server and setting up KMS, the customer had installed the Office 2010 Licensing pack but had "experienced errors"
- Customer couldn't provide details on what those errors may have been...
- We found that the Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack version installed on the new Windows 2012 R2 KMS server was a pre-Windows 8/Windows 2012 release that had known issues
- We reinstalled using the latest version (14.0.6133.5000, Jan 7 2013) from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=25095
- Tried activating new Office 2010 clients and renewing existing clients, but now we were failing with insufficient client count
- Noticed in the VAMT tool that multiple clients were registering with the Office 2010 CSVLK instead of GVLK
- Checked DNS - found that four workstations had registered themselves as KMS servers
- Logged into one of these clients - found that operating system was not activated
- Appeared that someone had installed these clients without a license key, then installed Office 2010 and tried to apply the Office 2010 Pro Plus volume license key to these clients in error
- This turned out to be the case on all four workstations that had registered themselves as KMS servers, but were in fact not activated to perform KMS function
- What appeared to be happening is that clients attempting to activate were locating the workstations registered as KMS servers in DNS, so activation requests were being sent to the wrong host(s)
Resolution:
- We resolved the matter using the following procedure:
On each invalid Windows 7 KMS server, perform the following from an administrative command prompt:
1. Uninstall existing product key:
C:\Windows\system32>cscript slmgr.vbs /upk
Uninstalled product key successfully.
2. Install the Windows 7 Enterprise GVLK from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867(v=ws.11).aspx:
C:\Windows\system32>cscript slmgr.vbs /ipk 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH
Installed product key 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH successfully.
3. Activate the KMS client using the GVLK:
C:\Windows\system32>cscript slmgr.vbs /ato
Activating Windows(R) 7, Enterprise edition (aexxxxxx-1bxx-41xx-acxx-6dxxxxxxxxxx) ...
Product activated successfully.
4. Change directory to the Office14 folder where ospp.vbs resides:
cd c:\program files (x86)\microsoft office\office14
5. Install the Office Professional Plus 2010 GVLK from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624355(v=office.14).aspx:
cscript ospp.vbs /inpkey:VYBBJ-TRJPB-QFQRF-QFT4D-H3GVB
---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
<Product key installation successful>
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------
6. Activate Office 2010 using the newly installed GVLK:
cscript ospp.vbs /act
---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
Installed product key detected - attempting to activate the following product:
SKU ID: 6fxxxxxx-8cxx-41xx-9bxx-83xxxxxxxxxx
LICENSE NAME: Office 14, OfficeProPlus-KMS_Client edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 14, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
Last 5 characters of installed product key: H3GVB
<Product activation successful>
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
---Exiting-----------------------------
7. Verify that the license activation status now shows that we're activated for the full 180 days:
Cscript ospp.vbs /dstatus
---Processing--------------------------
---------------------------------------
SKU ID: 6fxxxxxx-8cxx-41xx-9bxx-83xxxxxxxxxx
LICENSE NAME: Office 14, OfficeProPlus-KMS_Client edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 14, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
LICENSE STATUS: ---LICENSED---
Error Code: 0 as licensed
Last 5 characters of installed product key: H3GVB
REMAINING GRACE: 180 days (259200 minute(s) before expiring)
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---Exiting-----------------------------