Shortcut guide to KMS deployment for Windows 2008
The prerequisites for this shortcut guide is: Your KMS host is running, and is reachable. If it has a firewall running, make sure it can communicate on port 1688, and that it allows WMI communication. DNS publishing must be enabled. You need at least 5 Windows 2008 KMS clients before the client count reaches the threshold that will make the KMS actually activate your Windows 2008 clients. Or 25 for Windows Vista. All command prompts are started with elevated rights (usually as Administrator) if on Windows 2008.
Right, let's begin !
On the computer you want to be KMS host (which can be Vista, 2003 or 2008), start a command prompt.
Go to c:\windows\system32.
Write "cscript slmgr.vbs /ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX" where the X's part is our KMS volume activation key you probably got from Microsoft's licensing site.
This command registers your KMS key on your KMS host.
Next, write "cscript slmgr.vbs /ato".
This will activate your KMS host online with Microsoft. Actually, that's all you need to do.
If the client count is high enough, your clients will start activating within 10-15 minutes (is what I observed). They will reactivate every 7 days per default (this can be changed).
If you're impatient, go to one of your KMS clients.
Start a command prompt.
Go to c:\windows\system32.
Write "csript slmgr.vbs /ato".
This will make your KMS client try to activate... da daaaa... no, not with Microsoft, but with your KMS host ;)
I personally did this on all 6 clients, just to make the client count go up fast. Lo and behold, it worked :) Well, on 4 anyway, 2 won't communicate with it right now, but I'll find out what the error is.
If you want to know how many clients are being served, on your KMS host you start a command prompt.
Go to c:\windows\system32.
Write "cscript slmgr.vbs /dli".
That'll produce output along the following lines:
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Name: Windows Server(R), ServerStandard edition Description: Windows Operating System - Windows Server(R), VOLUME_KMS_B channel
Partial Product Key: XXXX
License Status: Licensed Key Management Service is enabled on this machine
Current count: 5
Listening on Port: 1688
DNS publishing enabled
KMS priority: Normal
Key Management Service cumulative requests received from clients
Total requests received: 14
Failed requests received: 0
Requests with License Status Unlicensed: 0
Requests with License Status Licensed: 4
Requests with License Status Initial grace period: 10
Requests with License Status License expired or Hardware out of tolerance: 0
Requests with License Status Non-genuine grace period: 0
Requests with License Status Notification: 0
If you need the detailed information regarding DNS SRV records, firewall configuration, how to operate it and all that, go here for the complete guides on how to do things. Use the Deployment Guide for initial setup of the service.
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