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Server 2008 R2 KMS Server support for Windows 8 and Server 2012 activation

The time has come, it has arrived. Windows 8 and Server 2012. And now you need to activate some clients  activate you a serve. If you are running a KMS Server using Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2, it may be time to upgrade; well not necessarily. You see when you attempt to activate your Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 server with your new KMS Keys with your existing KMS host you receive the following error message:

Error: 0xC004F050 The Software Licensing Service reported that the product key is invalid.

This is not 100% true, but does mean the KMS host isn’t supported. Thankfully Microsoft has released an update that will upgrade WIndows 7 or Server 2008 R2 KMS Host to support Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 activation’s. All you need to do is request a hotfix from the the following KB: (KB2691586)

Seeing how this KB hotfix would require me to reboot my server, I took this opportunity to patch up my server to the latest Windows updates.

Once the server is up and running again you will need to replace the KMS host key with the one for the 1012 or Windows 8. To do this, you just open the command prompt as administrator (elevate yourself) and enter in slmgr.vbs /upk which will show us Uninstalled product key successfully when complete. Now that this is done you will install the new key with slmgr.vbs /ipk SOMEW-HEREO-VERTH-ERAINB-OW123

You should now be presented with a product activated successfully window. You can also run
slmgr.vbs /dlv and under description you should see VOLUME_KMS_2012. Now you can start to activate your new Windows 8 and Server 2012 clients.

The question left is, does this now prevent my Windows 7, Server 2008, 2008R2 systems from activating at this point. Based on all that I have read if using the VLKey it will activate down level clients. This would cover Server 2008R2, Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Vista, along with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012

Now I wait for the VL / Enterprise stuff to start showing up in the licensing portal

Regards, Jermal