I'm not sure if you can answer my licencing questions but if so, that would be wonderful. I'm currently waiting on our Dell account manager to get back to me as to who our point of contact is supposed to be to get some clarification on this.
We currently have about 5-6 VL licences (with SA) for Windows. We have around 60-70 client systems at a given time. It is my understanding that because we have at least one VL licence we have the rights to reimage all of our systems. However, the majority must still be activated in the traditional manner as we don't have/want VL licences for each and every one. This requires us to have to deploy each and every system with its own key (from the COA). Our few VL licenced computers use MAK activation because we don't have enough to meet the KMS activation threshold. Are you implying that reimaging rights allows us to activate our OEM/Retail installs with KMS keys (built-in to VL media) against a KMS server and not incur extra licencing costs? OOBE has never asked for a key because previously we've only deployed up to Windows 7 with a specific key - either OEM COA, Retail or MAK - for each system, however, now that we are deploying Windows 10 (1511) and it's expected to 'read' the embedded BIOS key the product key screen comes up. If it's dismissed as stated in my original post deployment continues and completes successfully, including successful activation (so obviously it's eventually reading the key and activating with it properly). Please contact me off-list if this is considered too off-topic, I'm happy to discuss this openly for everyone's benefit though. Thanks, Freddy -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Niehaus Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 10:21 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [MDT-OSD] RE: Windows 10 Product Key prompt on deployed system VL provides reimaging rights. SA provides upgrade rights (basically, a superset of VL). Since you have both, you should be using VL media from VLSC, and then you should *never* need to use a key, unless you want to do MAK activation. KMS and AD activation would be automatic. Typically customers automate OOBE completely when deploying, so it never asks for a key - ever. Thanks, -Michael -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Freddy Grande Sent: Wednesday, December 2, 2015 4:16 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [MDT-OSD] RE: Windows 10 Product Key prompt on deployed system Will this work even if the systems aren't getting activated using KMS? I'll try this in the coming days and see. We have relevant VL licences along with SA agreements for our Windows licences and as far as I was this was enough to grant us reimaging rights and activating through OEM/Retail channels. http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/D/4/3D42BDC2-6725-4B29-B75A-A5B04179958B/Reimaging.pdf This has worked fine for Windows Vista/7, we never got around to rolling out Windows 8(.1) but are now trying to roll out Windows 10. If a retail/OEM key is provided during the MDT deployment, there is no issue with deploying the image. The only problem I'm seeing is when deploying to Windows 8 systems with built-in BIOS keys. The OOBE wizard asks for it but if I manually skip it it'll successfully complete installing and activating. It's almost like there would be a flag somewhere I can set to hide/skip that page. Regards, Freddy -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Niehaus Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2015 12:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [MDT-OSD] RE: Windows 10 Product Key prompt on deployed system Is this a VL image? Are you wanting to activate it using KMS? If so, you can specify a generic KMS client setup key to make the machine seek out a KMS server. See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj612867.aspx, use key W269N-WFGWX-YVC9B-4J6C9-T83GX. Typically this key is embedded in a VL image. If you are using OEM media to do this, then you've got other issues... Thanks, -Michael -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Freddy Grande Sent: Tuesday, December 1, 2015 9:51 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [MDT-OSD] Windows 10 Product Key prompt on deployed system Hi all, I feel like I've missed something obvious and my Bing-fu isn't working very well. Does anyone know how to bypass the "It's time to enter the product key" screen after the deployed Windows 10 OS is installed? I can manually just tap "Do this later" but I need this to be automated. The system is a Dell Venue 11 Pro that originally came with Windows 8 (built in BIOS key I believe). After skipping through not entering a key the system automatically activates. I'm deploying a captured Windows 10 Pro x64 1511 image. This also happened with the vanilla 1511 ISO and with the RTM Windows 10 ISO (after the system had activated post-upgrade). Helps? Regards, Freddy NOTICE: This email is confidential. If you are not the nominated recipient, please immediately delete this email, destroy all copies and inform the sender. Australian Maritime Systems Ltd. (AMS) prohibits the unauthorised copying or distribution of this email. This email does not necessarily express the views of AMS. 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