Activate Windows Virtual Machine

[Marilu Mandez]

AutomaticVirtual Machine Activation (AVMA) acts as a proof-of-purchase mechanism, helping to ensure that Windows products are used in accordance with the Product Use Rights and Microsoft Software License Terms.

AVMA lets you activate Windows Server virtual machines (VM) on a Windows Server Hyper-V host that is properly activated, even in disconnected environments. AVMA binds the VM activation to the licensed virtualization host and activates the VM when it starts up. When you use AVMA, you can get real-time reporting on usage and historical data on the license state of the VM. Reporting and tracking data is available on the virtualization host.

Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) partners and other hosting providers don't have to share product keys with tenants or access a tenant's VM to activate it. VM activation is transparent to the tenant when AVMA is used. Hosting providers can use the server logs to verify license compliance and to track client usage history.

AVMA requires a Windows Server Datacenter edition with the Hyper-V server host role installed. The Windows Server version of the host determines which versions it can activate in a guest VM. The following table lists the guest VM versions that each host version is able to activate. A host version can access all the editions (Datacenter, Standard, or Essentials) of its eligible guest VM versions.

To activate VMs with AVMA, you use a generic AVMA key (detailed in AVMA keys) that corresponds to the version of Windows Server that you want to activate. To create a VM and activate it with an AVMA key, follow these steps:

The Key-Value Pair (KVP) exchange between the virtualization host and the VM provides real-time tracking data for the guest operating systems, including activation information. This activation information is stored in the Windows registry of the VM. Historical data about AVMA requests is logged in Event Viewer on the virtualization host.

Since the AVMA activation process is transparent, error messages aren't displayed. However, AVMA requests are also logged on the virtualization host in Event Viewer in the Application log with Event ID 12310, and on the VM with Event ID 12309. The following events are captured on the VMs:

Does technically a VM in architecture of a Microsoft OS component itself really means a VM in terms of licensing? I would doubt it. Otherwise, using Device Guard which depends on Hyper-V hypervisor would be in breach of the licensing terms as the host OS is not really meant to be used as a VM.

Check 2b as well, Would they be considered as separate device as it is different partition/disk? For convenience I would assume if the machine comes with an OEM licensed VM from the manufacturer is fine but not transferring to a VM myself, but will cause another interesting question to explain why changing hard disk is allowed. I think we would be better off wait for a Microsoft representative to explain about it.

I use to work as a MS license auditor. I think everyone is in the right ball park. You can virtualize an OEM but only one instance on that OEM hardware and you cant do many of the things you would need enterprise licensing for. Obviously MS does not provide instructions, they dont care how you do it, as long as you have not reverse engineered their IP protections or used any sort of hack to cheat activation. MS just wants to see that you have a license, their audit gestapo really dont care about technical details, they just want to interrogate you for your papers.

I built a virtual machine on Azure using the Windows Server 2016 VM option. For a while, it's been working fine, but recently, it's started asking me to activate Windows. I can't do any sort of customization of the interface until I do so.

I've built a couple computers for my kids, and naturally they want to play MineCraft and whatever other games. So, we purchased full versions of Windows 10 Pro. I don't really have time to "manage" the systems and my experience with Windows tells me that it's only a matter of time before some game mod or accidental click results in malware or a virus or the systems just get bogged down with junk ware.

So, a great strategy in my opinion is to give the kids access to virtual machines for their play and create a snapshot that we can periodically restore. My experience with VMWare Fusion and VMWare Workstation is that this process takes mere seconds and you can rest assured that the system at all levels will be exactly as you want.

We tried this. We got the new builds working. Installed full version of Windows 10 Pro using one of our keys. Activated. Installed VMWare Workstation. Created a Windows 10 Pro Virtual machine, and attempted to activate using that same key. The system refuses to activate because the Host is using the key. This is a first for me.

Does Microsoft not allow a Windows 10 Pro virtual machine to activate on the same keyed host machine? This seems like a backend activation policy; however unreasonable, vs. a technical issue, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

Using VMs seemed like a great way to run Windows "safely"; however, it turns out to be prohibitively expensive. The solution we settled on is actually better. We use TruImage to create a snapshot of their computers. Once Windows starts to choke down or we suspect malware or other infection, we simply restore our snapshots and are quickly back up and running.

I am being asked to set up a battery of windows 7 flavours for a guy over in QA using VM's so that his office isn't filled with boxen. Is the common practice to activate these temporary machines or do folks just set them up, run the tests and then reload after a while.

I've been testing it on a machine and I don't bother to activate as I usually rebuild that machine every other week to test something else. If you plan to use those VM for longer than the period before activation I'd say yes, activate them.

I don't know about Win7, but we're gold partners and while we get 500 licenses for Vista Business/Enterprise, we get 1 license for Vista Ultimate. Activating that on test virtuals burned that single lincense for us, and we have to call to get it activated.

This will absolutely depend on your license agreement. We have extremely flexible licensing for testing/development purposes, which is exactly what you're doing. Our desktop license count has proven to be effectively unlimited, as we simply get a new key whenever the old ones are used up by the constant VM churn.

Someone enlighten me if I'm mistaken, but there's nothing shady at all about installing and using a copy until the activation runs out. No need to borrow trouble if the VMs won't be in QA long enough to explode.

If you're using test or development licenses (such as those bundled with TechNet or MSDN subscriptions), I would suggest not activating the installation unless you specifically need to use the test server beyond the evaluation period. The main reason is that Microsoft usually does not allow reactivation of used TechNet or MSDN licenses. [Edited based on comment]

The following option probably does not apply to you, but it's worth mentioning for the benefit of others: If you are using volume licenses, then activation is not ever necessary, but you should let your license administrator know of the change, so that your organization remains in compliance with the terms of the volume license agreement.

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