Danielx64 Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 Ok, Over the next 18 months or so I am planing an upgrade to all the client computers from windows 7 pro/office 2010 pro plus to windows 10 (not sure if it will be pro or enterprise yet)/Office 2016. This is for a not for profit. One of the things that I looked at is, what can I do to make things easier and what annoying the heck out of me right now? One thing that I would love to solve, the fact that we use quite afew MAK different keys (we have the option of buying licenses as we need then, due to the fact that it a not for profit business under a special deal), Considering that we would be getting brand new keys for windows and office, I figured that I would have a look at getting KMS going so that when I rebuild a computer, I would never need to put a key in for windows/office and not worry about using the wrong key on the wrong machine. Is there anyone here who got experience with running KMS and is there anything that I should watch out for? What happen if I need to free up a license to use on a different machine (or even rebuild the machine)? We are running Windows server 2012 R2 Thank-you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGeorge Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 I work for a not non-profit as well. Our consultant advised us to just stick with MAK keys. They said they only recommend KMS if dealing with an enterprise situation. Whether not it was good advice is debatable. There is only so much I'm capable of and unfortunately, not in a position to further education at this time. I keep a book with PCNAMEs and keys associated with each machine. I also try to buy enough keys at one time, so all machines use the same keys. Its infuruating MS doesn't provide a simple way to add licenses to existing SA agreements. Check out Techsoup.org if you're 501c3. Danielx64 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 How big is your org? You may not qualify for KMS as you're getting MAK keys. KMS isn't simply a way of entering your MAK keys into 1 repository. KMS and MAK keys are different. Stop whinging about entering keys, it's part of a sys admins life. Danielx64 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted December 9, 2015 Veteran Share Posted December 9, 2015 KMS is easy, esp on 2012r2. It keeps a current count of licenses, it is more of a trust thing with kms than a "you only have x licenses"...kind of like how ad cals work. Once you have activated the KMS server for the product you want it to host, that is it. If a machine does not talk back to the server in 90 days the license count drops. The only real issue with kms is that it may not activate the client/individual installs until the minimum computer count has been reached. For server it is 5, windows pro is 25, office is 5. The proper term for it is minimum threshold. This is a pain, but there are ways to artificially up the license count and isn't really for discussion here. Danielx64 and FunkyMike 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted December 9, 2015 Veteran Share Posted December 9, 2015 2 minutes ago, Jared- said: How big is your org? You may not qualify for KMS as you're getting MAK keys. KMS isn't simply a way of entering your MAK keys into 1 repository. KMS and MAK keys are different. Stop whinging about entering keys, it's part of a sys admins life. automation is part of a sys admins life, kms is a big part of automation....or when you run out of activations you need to call ms up. I would rather have a kms server up and running and not have to think about it. Danielx64 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danielx64 Posted December 9, 2015 Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 19 minutes ago, AR556 said: I work for a not non-profit as well. Our consultant advised us to just stick with MAK keys. They said they only recommend KMS if dealing with an enterprise situation. Whether not it was good advice is debatable. There is only so much I'm capable of and unfortunately, not in a position to further education at this time. I keep a book with PCNAMEs and keys associated with each machine. I also try to buy enough keys at one time, so all machines use the same keys. Its infuruating MS doesn't provide a simple way to add licenses to existing SA agreements. Check out Techsoup.org if you're 501c3. Indeed, we got 23-25 computers (including one laptop) and mucking around with product keys on each one of then is a pain, because I need to make sure that I'm using the right one, and many times I used the wrong one by mistake. We use http://www.connectingup.org/ to get our licenses 15 minutes ago, Jared- said: How big is your org? You may not qualify for KMS as you're getting MAK keys. We have the option of using a MAK key or KMS key, our choice. Heck we can even order one desktop OS license and still get a MAK and KMS key. All our keys are given via the VLSC along with ISO files. 15 minutes ago, sc302 said: KMS is easy, esp on 2012r2. It keeps a current count of licenses, it is more of a trust thing with kms than a "you only have x licenses"...kind of like how ad cals work. Once you have activated the KMS server for the product you want it to host, that is it. If a machine does not talk back to the server in 90 days the license count drops. The only real issue with kms is that it may not activate the client/individual installs until the minimum computer count has been reached. For server it is 5, windows pro is 25, office is 5. The proper term for it is minimum threshold. This is a pain, but there are ways to artificially up the license count and isn't really for discussion here. Hmm that may be a problem for us, just did a quick head count, and we got 21 computers that get turned on all the time, one laptop that sometime get turned on and 2 spare computers in case any of the 21 computers break down. 12 minutes ago, sc302 said: automation is part of a sys admins life, kms is a big part of automation....or when you run out of activations you need to call ms up. I would rather have a kms server up and running and not have to think about it. 100% on that one, I had enough of mucking around with keys As for running out of activation, that haven't happened yet but if I don't change things for the better, then that could very well happen. Thank-you for your comments guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 .......... Some people take what I say too literal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danielx64 Posted December 10, 2015 Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 Just did some more research, and I found that we have an open license agreement with MS, and therefore if we wanted KMS keys, we would have to request then. At this point, there are quite a few other issues that I would need to sort out (including a lot of testing and trying things out) that I think I will leave this matter for later. Now if this download would hurry up, I'll be happy binaryzero 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
binaryzero Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 Well sounds like you're eligible for it then - go for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGeorge Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 Something else I do in addition to the Key book I keep is sticking a label on the top of each PC with the last 4 characters of a product key for whatever specialized software that PC runs. Just helps with verification purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 KMS is easy and it simplifies things hugely when you're dealing with a large and frequently changing number of assets. In your case, it seems like you've got a fairly small and static number of machines, so it's probably not necessary. When there aren't other big tasks in front of you, give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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