An administrator for the organization purchases some volume license agreements and receives both the KMS key and it’s old school counterpart the Multiple Activation Key (MAK). Instead of using several different MAK keys to activate all of these client licenses, the KMS server gets configured on one or two servers in the environment. This way the clients can validate against the KMS servers and not decrement any sort of activation count.

The way this works is really not too difficult. The clients that are using KMS keys (the default method in Windows 7 and Office 2010) check in continuously with the KMS Server(s) on the network. Licensing is validated approximately every 30 days to ensure the client can find the license server. If the client leaves the environment and cannot connect, the missing or failed activation notifications start appearing. Once the license has been revalidated against a KMS server, the balloons go away again for at least 30 days.

At first the constant check in method of licensing seemed very confusing, since I am used to the previous method of volume licensing, one key for all (or a good number of) your clients. When using Key Management Servers, the host machine gets the key installed for KMS, which is included with volume licenses. Once this key is installed for each product, the server can begin pushing out licensing to those clients. There is one caveat to this idea, each product that is going to use KMS requires different client counts to be discovered before it will issue a key.

For example, for Office 2010 Professional Plus the minimum count for KMS is 5 clients. When configuring it, you must install 5 clients before keys will be issued. Until this happens, the banner in each application will alert the user that it is not activated. Once five or more clients check in with the KMS server, Office on these clients will receive keys and the alerts will go away.

For Windows Server 2008 R2, the number of clients is also five. Windows 7 Enterprise clients however, require 25 clients to check in with KMS for keys to be issued. This is done to prevent people from installing extra clients to allow KMS licensing to work with fewer actual users.

Because the KMS server communicates with Microsoft licensing via the Internet, it determines if the host key licensing is active. Then your local server handles licensing and key distribution for clients. Each client will check in with a KMS server every 30 days to request a key. The keys are valid for 90 days, which will allow for the occasional traveller to continue using the products if they are out of the office when normal re-activation would occur. If you are in an environment with a great deal of road warriors who do not check in at the home office (physically or via VPN) regularly, using a key provided by KMS doesn’t make too much sense. There are keys included with Volume Licensing agreements for these users, they are called MAK keys and are covered next.

Multiple Activation Keys – MAK

These keys more closely resemble the old method of volume licensing, the one key for many clients scenario. You will not receive one key for all of your clients if the number of licenses you purchase is large and you still need to purchase a license for every instance of an application. The MAK key only provides you additional activations for the key, not additional licenses.

In large licensing runs, MAK keys might be split into thirds to prevent one key from being used for all of the clients. This is done to cut down on piracy of license keys. When licensing for most clients can be done by KMS this idea makes a lot of sense, especially when fewer MAK keys will be used in that scenario

Additional KMS benefits
Once you have gotten the Key Management Server setup in your environment, licensing is handled locally. This server will check in with Microsoft initially, but once that is completed, the clients obtain licensing from the server on your network. KMS servers will provide keys to any clients who request them in an environment which is also a plus.

Suppose I am traveling to a client office and my laptop, which is usually on my desk, uses KMS. If the client runs into its 30 day window while I am onsite at a client, it will look for a KMS server. If the office I am working in has a KMS server, it will issue the key and no functionality will be lost (or lovely warning messages presented).

Any KMS server found can accommodate a request from any client it can communicate with. Since there is no limit on the number of keys provided by KMS this is a great plus, less activation worries and work for administrators. The key provided by the other KMS server will keep my laptop happy for up to 90 days, even though it will start requesting a key after 30 days.

The benefit here is less management of licensing and activation. Sure you still have to purchase, record, and understand where licenses get used, but with KMS licensing servers, for most of your clients (at least where Microsoft licenses are concerned) the work is done through software with a little work on the front end, but not too much at all after that.

Hopefully this brief look at Microsoft’s Key Management Server licensing configuration will provide enough information for you to consider configuring a KMS server or two in your environment. At the time of this writing, KMS only works with products acquired through volume licensing.

Being someone who likes to use the latest applications and gets asked questions about getting the new version of product x, I thought I would share what I found here.

Click here to learn more. Just as an aside, please read the fine print at the bottom.

The benefit I see this having is for those getting new computers.  This way if they buy Office 2007, they can upgrade to 2010 at release without needing to rebuy or purchase an upgrade.

OneNote 2010 has got to be my favorite application in the suite so far.  Check out the overview I did for TechRepublic here.

As other articles are posted I will get them linked here as well.

If you made the technical preview, congratulations.  It is still a closed program and no word has been shared as to the public availability of the beta for Office 2010.

Please check out the simple poll below and outline your thoughts on features in the comments.

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