Sam- You'll need to go through a reseller. Someone like CDW or ASAP Software (now Dell) or similar.
You can get into open license with IIRC as few as 5 units so you'll be fine with that. Once they get that setup you'll have access to either licensing and/or eopen (couple portal MS runs) and from there you're able to manage keys, license quantities (IIRC), and get media. For 20 machines you'd need a MAK key. If you can get 25+ between workstations, servers, etc then you can stand up a KMS. You're not going to avoid activating, but, with a KMS in particular it's pain free. You activate the KMS once and then add a couple DNS records and all your machines will then just talk to your KMS on their own. There are special keys published on Technet/Internet that you use for setup and they force the machine to talk to a KMS (or you can leave the key field blank too). Thanks, Brian Desmond [email protected] c - 312.731.3132 From: Sam Cayze [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 2:44 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Win 7 key Can I hijack this? I've actually never been in a position that manages purchasing licenses. It was always handled by different role. Now I am that role, how does the licensing work in a nutshell? I range between 20 and 30 deployed workstations that will be needing Win7. All of them are using WinXP Volume. They all shipped with Vista OEM's as well. (I skipped Vista). And I would like to upconvert any XP/Vista/Win7 OEM licenses that the machines ship with to Volume. I hate activations. What's the best route? TIA, Sam ________________________________ From: Jim Majorowicz [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 12:59 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: Win 7 key Yes and no. It seems that when you purchase any sort of Open license they will now issue KMS keys regardless of how many licenses you purchase. If you don't qualify for a KMS server, you'll need to request MAK keys for your licenses. I've found this needs to be done from the Licensing website, not the eOpen website. From: David Lum [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 10:19 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Win 7 key I have licenses for 5 Windows 7 systems but the only key code I received is for KMS, not MAK ones, is this normal? David Lum // SYSTEMS ENGINEER NORTHWEST EVALUATION ASSOCIATION (Desk) 971.222.1025 // (Cell) 503.267.9764 ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
