All Vista require Activation too?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Luis MKLS
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Luis MKLS

Do all versions of Vista require activation including large companies with
over 10,000 machines? How do you handle those if we need to automate?
 
Kerry said:
Yes all versions of Vista require activation. Large companies can set
up their own activation server.
Click to expand...

Thus increasing the TCO of a Vista deployment for business, but never mind,
what matters is that Vista can't be pirated. Oh wait, that would be true
except that crackers have already bypassed the activation routine and thus
the people most inconvenianced by activation are the paying customers.
 
They haven't really bypassed it. All they are using ins the RC2 activation,
and that has a timebom so it will die on them in may or april (cant remember
when) and re-installing wont help. It is a dated time bomb, not a timebomb
that counts days
-Cullen Dudas
 
Kerry

I work for a large state agency and we do have volume licensing. The best
method is to ( if you have volume licensing which I am sure you must ) is to
go to your MSDN Volume licensing website and click on create your MAK (
multiple access key ).

MAK is MUCH more preferable than setting up your own authendication server
... also if you set up your authendication server .. your desktops will be
asked to re-authendicate every 180 days or so.

MAK is the way to go .. ask your purchasing people .. I am sure they can
point you in the right direction.

Rick Lipkin
SC Dept of Health, USA
 
While I agree personally that MAK is the best option I can see that some
people may want to go with KMS and keep everything in house. With MAK there
is a possibility of end users having to phone for activation and also leaked
keys being invalidated. The way I understand KMS if they can't connect to
their KMS server they can't activate so a leaked key doesn't do any good to
someone outside your network. Both have advantages and disadvantages. To be
honest with you I will probably be recommending most of my customers use OEM
product rather than volume licenses because of these issues. None of my
customers are large enough that the limitations involved in deploying OEM
product is much of a burden. If they have to activate anyway, at their price
levels OEM is cheaper and about the same amount of work to deploy. It will
also be a while before they deploy Vista in any case. By the time they are
ready I'm sure the issues will be much clearer which choice is the best for
them.
 
Since bashing volume activation is a moot exercise at this point, it's
useful to point out a useful feature of it. In most big corporations,
keeping track of licenses in use is a non-trivial exercise. There are a
number of products designed to do just that. Companies using volume
licensing must "true up" every so often, and volume activation does ensure
that your Windows licenses are in order.

There are a couple of things I haven't seen addressed yet - mostly in the
logistical side of things... for example, we tend to overpurchase licenses -
we buy computers which usually have Windows something on them, and then we
also cover all our systems with our SA license. So say you buy 100 new
desktops with Vista Business, and you image them with Enterprise using MAK -
you decrement your MAKs by 100 (or using the VLS you increment your count of
activations by 100). But there is no accounting for those 100 copies of
Business that you wiped. So usually we buy computers with XP home, and
maybe in the future we'll buy them with starter... ?

Oh and it's worth mentioning on this thread, that the volume license version
is Enterprise, not just whatever you want to run. As I understand it,
Enterprise is the same as Business only with the volume license key and
corresponding functionality. And it does not come on the standard DVD, or
accept RTM keys (I think - though I haven't tried it to see if that's
accurate)

Rich
 
Rich said:
There are a couple of things I haven't seen addressed yet - mostly in
the logistical side of things... for example, we tend to overpurchase
licenses - we buy computers which usually have Windows something on
them, and then we also cover all our systems with our SA license. So
say you buy 100 new desktops with Vista Business, and you image them
with Enterprise using MAK - you decrement your MAKs by 100 (or using
the VLS you increment your count of activations by 100). But there
is no accounting for those 100 copies of Business that you wiped. So
usually we buy computers with XP home, and maybe in the future we'll
buy them with starter... ?
Click to expand...

Ahh, but you aren't over purchasing. Volume licenses for the OS (at least
previous ones) are upgrade licenses. You have to have a qualifying OS for
each pc before you can use the volume license. So few people realise this
that VL media kits now come with upgrade media rather than the full version.

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/osbits.mspx

I don't know if this is the same for Vista but I assume it is.
 
To All

Generally speaking .. we buy OEM and since we buy in quartly 'bulk
purchases' .. we usually wipe a new box clean, re-format and 'image' using
our VLK and using the MAK is a logical solution for us.

There are two ways to go with VLK .. either with the 'select' or
'enterprise' agreement. Right now we are using the SA VLK for Vista and that
will probably change as we are in a MAJOR Novell to Microsoft conversion ..
which only includes the EA for the server connectivity cals. I forsee our
Agency moving the desktop OS, our e-mail to Exchange and probably the Office
suite under the EA as well.

For me .. being able to NOT have to deal with who has what license and what
I can and can not put on a desktop is a real 'time saver'. We have over 5
thousand desktops and users inevitably go and do things they shouldn't .. eg
.. .downloading malwear, adwear .. and generally trashing a desktop. If our
techs can not fix a desktop in a reasonable amount of time .. we save off
the users files and re-image. Not having to deal with 'phoning home' each
time is a real plus in our Agency.

Rick Lipkin
SC Dept of Health, USA
 
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