Volume Activation Technical Reference Guide

Microsoft Corporation

Published: July 2009

This reference guide is for information technology (IT) implementers whose organizations are planning deployments of Volume Activation versions of the Windows® 7 and Windows Server® 2008 R2 operating systems. It is a companion to the Volume Activation Planning Guide, Volume Activation Deployment Guide, and Volume Activation Operations Guide.

The guide is presented in sections. You may download the entire guide. This guide also has been localized into several languages.

User Experience
Slmgr.vbs Options
Registry and Group Policy Object Settings
KMS Activation Timing and Discovery
KMS and MAK Activation Scenarios
KMS Host Keys to Products Activated
Activation Policy Values
KMS Client Setup Keys
Activation Error Codes
Windows Event Log
WMI Properties and Methods
Glossary and Resources

This guide provides technical reference information for the Volume Activation Planning Guide, the Volume Activation Deployment Guide, and the Volume Activation Operations Guide. For an overview of Microsoft® Volume Activation and its components, see the Volume Activation Planning Guide. This reference contains:

• User experience

• Slmgr.vbs options

• Registry settings

• Group Policy object (GPO) settings

• Key Management Service (KMS) activation timing

• KMS discovery search order

• Activation scenarios

• KMS host keys to products

• Activation policy values

• KMS client setup keys

• Activation error codes

• Windows® event log

• Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) properties and methods

• Glossary

• Resources

Note   For support of other software using Volume Activation, refer to the documents specifically written for those applications.

This guide uses the following conventions:

• Command lines and command-line options appear in bold.

• Placeholders in command-line options have angled brackets (<>) around them.

• Optional command-line options have square brackets ([]) around them.

• Registry subkey and value names appear in bold.