MSDN Vista Activation limit

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott Fenstermacher
  • Start date Start date
Scott;
You can activate it on 10 computers for only your use.
Read the MSDN Master EULA for details.
 
It's an academic question. Activating 11, if you still have all 10 up and
running, violates the EULA. If y our in a development environment with heavy
turnover of systems, I would only activate the systems that do not turn
over.
 
You may get a message to call the activation center on number 11 machine.
If the first ten were activated very recently you will get the message.
Reactivation on the same machine does not decrement your remaining
activations counter on the servers.
 
From TechNet Subscriptions Faq....

We understand that TechNet subscribers have unique needs, so we have
included special activation privileges for TechNet subscribers.

TechNet Subscription product keys can be used to activate up to 10 machines.
Although you must go through the activation process each time you reinstall
on the same PC, your total number of activations will not be decremented.
For Windows, TechNet subscribers have a 60-day grace period before the
product must be activated. If you will be reinstalling the software in less
than 60 days, you do not need to activate it. Please note that Windows
Update and Windows Genuine Advantage require that the installation be
activated.
For Office 2003, TechNet subscribers have 50 launches before the product
must be activated.
Software may be reinstalled on the same machine as many times as needed
without reactivating it. However, if the hard disk is reformatted prior to
reinstallation, reactivation may be required however the total number of
activations will not be decremented.
Is Microsoft Product Activation the same for the Windows operating system as
it is for applications such as Office and Visio?
Customers can activate the software during initial setup. Windows Welcome
will guide the user through activation. Users who choose to skip activation
during setup will be reminded periodically during the following 60 days to
activate Windows (15 days for pre-release versions). Subscribers who choose
to activate Windows after setup will be guided through the activation
process.
With applications such as Office and Visio, activation can be completed
after initial setup. The user will be asked to activate when an application
is launched. The user can choose to activate at that time or may choose to
skip activation and do it later; users are provided 50 launches of the
product before they are required to activate.
TechNet Subscription product keys can be used to activate software on up to
10 computers. If you plan to reinstall before activation is required, it is
recommended that you not activate.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ms772427.aspx
 
In a perfect world, and if my understanding is correct, you can install it
an unlimited ammount of times on the same computer. As long as there have
not been significant hardware changes, it should activate with no issues.
However, it can only be transferred to 10 computers, meaning installed on
one computer and removed from the previous computer.
If you are wondering how many times it can be installed on the same
computer, there should be no limit. However, if you don't want to deal with
all that hastle. install it once, get it working right, activate, and do a
complete computer back-up. This way when you screw your computer all up, you
can restore it back to it's original condition, worry free, already
activated, and ready to rock and roll.

Hope this helps. :-)
 
Are you sure, Gene? Don't you mean to say that the product can be installed
on up to ten machines? You can transfer an MSDN license to a different
machine but you cannot exceed installation on ten machines at any one time.
Reactivations do not count against this just as you say. An MSDN license is
classified as a "retail license" (transferrable to another machine) as you
can see on the page that lists your keys.
 
Well, iam traing iactivate my vista uktinmate but he give the error that
this key is in use already.Why?
 
Call the activation center and resolve. You may have installed on more than
the allowed number of machines.
 
Hi Jupiter,

I have two related questions regarding this, so I'll add them
here rather than start a new thread:

Q1: How does one *transfer* an MSDN licnese from one PC to
another? As I read it so far, You can format the old machine,
but that doesn't remove it from the list of activated licenses,
so you're still down by one license even though that PC is
no longer a Vista PC. Complete the tranfser 10 times (killing
off the old machine each time) and you run out of licenses,
even thought only one Vista licenses is still in use.


Q2: In the eopen.microsoft.com page for our MSDN subscription,
I only see 5/5 available MAKs for Vista. Why does everyone say
there are 10? Are we missing some for some reason?

Cheers,
Geoff
 
Geoff;
1. Simply uninstall from the old and install on the new.
As I understand it, the activation table is cleared similar to the retail
installations after 120 days.
Unless you frequently reinstall changing machines, which may happen, you may
never have activation issues.
If there are activation problems, calling for activation should resolve it.
If not, call MSDN subscriber support even if the subscription has expired.

2. I am not familiar enough with Volume Licensing and am not sure of your
specific reference to answer.
MSDN Subscriber support should be be able to give you an answer or point in
the correct place.

Read your specific Master EULA for details on your specific subscription.
 
Hi Jupier,

Thanks for the response.
Hmmm. There are clearly holes in my knowledge on this. I don't
know what you mean by "the activation table is cleared...".
Is there a description of the details of this on the MS web site?
 
I have a situation related to MSDN Vista activation and I'm at a complete
loss as to how to handle it. I can't believe I'm the only one in this
position and that there isn't a way to deal with it.

I have an MSDN OS subscription and am trying to set up a Vista image for a
PC lab that I do application compatibility testing on for software that my
company develops. The two main problems are that these PC's get reimaged
over and over between tests, and that I need to be able to update the image
periodically to update the image with current OS patches (so we don't have to
take time to update the PC every time we load an image) and update some other
software we keep on the image.

First, the MSDN FAQ says that MSDN OS subscriptions are supposed to have a
60 day activation window instead of only 30 days, and that if a PC will be
reimaged in that time they recommend you just don't bother to activate it.
However, my MSDN Vista install still says it's only a 30 day activation
window, not 60. What's the deal? I think we could work with the 60 period,
but not the 30 day.

My second, and bigges problem, is the ability to reset the activation window
so it will start 30 (or 60) days from when the image is reloaded on a PC, not
from when Vista was originally installed on the or original PC the image was
created on. I know I use sysprep /generalize to do this, but everything I
read says I can only do this up to 3 times. But as I said I need to update
these images periodically and will need to reset the activation timer each
time. So at most I can update this image 3 times?! I've also read some info
about using the SkipRearm registry setting to extend this, but the
documentation I've read on SkipRearm on TechNet says it does the exact
opposite of what these other articles say it does, it PREVENTS sysprep
/generalize from resetting the activation period. And even if it does work
to extend the sysprep /generalize, SkipRearm apparently still has some limit
of 8 or 10. The only way I see around this is to create a fully activated
image, but then I have to create an image for every PC. That's a ridiculous
amount of work.

So any suggestions on how to deal with this situation would be greatly
apprecaited. Thank you!
 
I originally was going to post on the MSDN Managed Newsgroups but I couldn't
find a specific newsgroup there that seemed an appropriate group for this
question. All the groups seem to be more development related, nothing just
about OS install or configuration. Can you suggest a specific MSDN Managed
Newsgroup that would be appropriate for this question?

Thank you.
 
I am a TcehNet subscriber, however I think there are basic principles
applied to both groups (TechNet and MSDN).

Regarding the following quote "...All the groups seem to be more development
related..." Are we misssing something here? Is not "...more development
related..." the basic assumption for MSDN?

Could be you are operaing in a "production" environment rather than
"development".
 
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