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Altimus Prime
Asked: 2019-08-25 10:32:51 +0800 CST

How do you activate Windows Server license in an Azure vps?

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When provisioning a Windows Server 2008 R2 Datazenter VPS in Azure there is a question,

Already have a Windows Server Licence?

I selected "no" and expected that the cost for the instance would include a license because the info bubble says,

If you own Windows licenses with active Software Assurance (SA) or have an active Windows Server subscription, use Azure Hybrid Benefit to save compute cost.

Upon accessing the server via remote desktop connection, the instance indicates that windows is not activated and needs a product key.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/licensing-faq/ states:

The license to run Windows Server in the Azure environment is by default included in the per-minute cost of your Windows Virtual Machine.

So where is the key?

windows-server-2008

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    There is a couple different pre-reqs for the VM to get activated.

    1. Windows is configured with the appropriate KMS client setup key for that version of Windows.
    2. Windows is configured to use the Azure KMS service, e.g. kms.core.windows.net:1688 for VMs in Azure public cloud regions.
    3. VM has network connectivity to the KMS endpoint, e.g. kms.core.windows.net:1688 for VMs in Azure public cloud regions. For example, if the guest OS firewall or an Azure network security group (NSG) rule does not allow TCP port 1688 outbound, the activation request will be blocked.
    4. Source IP address of KMS activation requests from the VM must be an IP address within the Azure IP ranges. This is necessary because the Azure KMS service only allow requests through if the source IP is within the Azure IP ranges. If you are using ExpressRoute, please see Azure VM may fail to activate over ExpressRoute. If you are using site-to-site VPN please see Use Azure custom routes to enable KMS activation with forced tunneling.

    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/mast/2017/06/14/troubleshooting-windows-activation-failures-on-azure-vms/

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