Questions[activation](server)

I'm planning to setup a Hyper-V virtual machine with Windows 10 and try to migrate some business applications. If everything works, I plan to activate with a Win 10 Professional license key. Unfortunately, I only see the Enterprise iso available for download.

Is it possible to switch the version later during activation?

Or can I get an official Professional evaluation ISO somewhere?

I'm managing a phpBB-based forum that gets hit hard by spammers signing up fake accounts. To combat this, we enabled "administrator activation required", but it's not working so well: When a new user signs up, I get an email with a link to activate that user. However, there's no link to let me easily look at the user first; it goes straight to activation.

I'd like to try a different approach, along these lines:

1. I'd like to allow registrations without my approval; instead, the user must get a mail with an activation link.
2. I'd like a designated moderator group to approve all posts made by newly registered users. This should be done through the forum's web-based moderation control panel.
3. When a new user posts a spammy message, I want the moderator group to kill the message and the account.
4. When a new user has posted a few non-spammy messages, he's whitelisted and further postings require no approval.

How do I achieve this setup? -or- Is there a similar but smarter approach?

UPDATE: I finally found a watertight solution: http://CleanTalk.org -- it's a paid service but for a measly $8 per year it's well worth the money. So far the filter has worked 100% accurately, without any spammers getting through and without blocking legit users. I am impressed.

What are the differences (and maybe pros and cons) of KMS and MAK license activation for Windows 7?

I need to find a solution for developers using virtual environments with VMWare Workstation 7.

We develop in different and incompatible environments. Presently almost a week is lost when modifying a developers PC for a particular environment. We need a method for creating a virtual machine then leaving it on a server. When a developer needs a particular environment they can just grab it off of the server and launch the virtual machine.

We use MSDN Premium licensees for developers. With Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 SP1 and Windows Virtual PC I was able to build an environment, sysprep, and leave it on the server. Developers were able to grab the virtual machine and on the first boot up sysprep would run. After the next reboot the VM was ready for development.

Now with VMWare Workstation 7 and Windows XP SP3 after syspreping a message is displayed that says the hardware has changed significantly since the first activation and Windows needs to be reactivated. Calling Microsoft each time we need to use a virtual machine would be a hassle.

NOTE: All users are using the same revision of VMWare Workstation.

How can we get this method to work for VMWare Workstation 7 in a similar manner that it does for Microsoft Virtual PC and Windows Virtual PC?

I saw these two questions:

Vista VMWare Release SysPrep/Activation Best Practice?

Windows Vista activation in VMWare

They did not have a suitable answer. The traditional trial time limit is not an option. Our development cycles are significantly longer than the trial periods. Because there are a lot of changes to base VMs forcing developers to restart after a certain time period is not an option.

Our developers travel frequently and are many times without an internet connection. An ESX server is unfortunately not an option.

Does anyone have any suggestions for avoiding reactivation when moving a VM between two machines?

Our QA team requires Vista VMs for testing (installers, features, performance general compatibility, etc.). Physical PCs with Vista installed don't cut it since they make it difficult to roll back to specific points in the process.

The problem is that Vista's activation model is completely incompatible with this model. I haven't traced down exactly what causes Vista to deactivate itself, but it seems related to moving VMs between workstations. This happens a lot for us. It also seems to deactivate if we upgrade VMWare Workstation (unconfirmed).

We are an MSDN partner so we have plenty of product keys for Vista, but it's a huge pain to keep reactivating it. Even moreso since we make heavy use of snapshots (ie, reactivate it in one snapshot, then roll back to a different one and you have to reactivate again).

Has anyone found a way around this, or does VMWare have some tool I'm overlooking to keep Vista from panicking every time the desktop machine changes?

Finally, has anyone had this issue in ESX 3+?