GCE VM instance - Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter, is license required?

[Mike Ellis]

I understand that GCE Windows Server instances carry an extra charge, but do I also have to buy a Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter license?

My instance is telling me to activate, and when I click to activate it gives the following error,

Windows Activation - A problem occurred when Windows tried to activate. Error Code 0xC004F074 (KMS can not be located)

If I do need to buy a separate license, does Google offer Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition or something less costly to license?

I'm on a Chromebox, and I really just use it for those rare occasions when a website only works in Internet Explorer or an MS Office file is giving me issues. Is there a better solution for this? Amazon EC2?

 

[Rocky Borrego]

I realize this is an old post, but I just ran into the same thing.  What is the resolution?

[Anthony Voellm]

The license should activate as part of boot. Windows is a premium OS which means it's cost is added to the per hour instance cost.

https://cloud.google.com/compute/pricing#premiumoperatingsystems

Try rebooting the VM of resolve this.

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[Rocky Borrego]

Thanks for the info Tony.  Unfortunately, rebooting did not help.  It says I have 22 days left to activate Windows.  

On Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 6:19:04 PM UTC-6, Mike Ellis wrote:

[Rocky Borrego]

Okay, never mind.  I got it working.  It may have had something to do with the fact that that instance did not have an external IP address.  It was configured to access the Internet via a NAT gateway that I had setup.  No amount of rebooting and clicking on the 'Activate Windows Now' link helped.  

But as soon as I attached an external IP to the instance, rebooted, and click on the  'Activate Windows Now', it worked!

On Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 6:19:04 PM UTC-6, Mike Ellis wrote:

[Anthony Voellm]

I'll log the info for the Windows team.  Thanks for the followup!

PS My Day job is leading the Cloud Performance Team at Google. I just like to help when I can ... or not this case not really help that much. You helped us ;)

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[Alex Gaysinsky]

Hi Rocky,

You're right. For Windows activation to work, a Windows instance needs connectivity to the Google KMS server at 

kms.windows.googlecloud.com:1688

So, you either need to attach an external IP to the instance or have proxy setup to route KMS traffic to kms.windows.googlecloud.com.

We're going to update our documentation on https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/operating-systems/windows very soon.

Best Regards,

--Alex

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Alex Gaysinsky | Product Manager | gays...@google.com | 310-406-4298

[Rocky Borrego]

Awesome guys!  I am glad that I was able to help out and contribute.  We are all in this together!  

On Thursday, January 22, 2015 at 6:19:04 PM UTC-6, Mike Ellis wrote: