Enable KMS on MSDN Activate Windows 2008 Servers

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Activate Windows Server 2008 RTM (MSDN Subscriber Downloads version)
This weekend I downloaded and installed Windows Server 2008 RTM from MSDN Subscriber Downloads. I was building a VPC image with that + SQL Server 2005 + TFS 2008 + Team Suite 2008 + Office 2007. Everything installed smoothly, but when I tried to activate Windows Server 2008 I received the following error:

And when I clicked on the “More Information” link, this popped up.

Um, OK. So what’s that supposed to mean?

I poked around and found a KB article with a similar error message for Vista activations (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/938107), which says:

When you try to activate Windows Vista, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

Activation Error: Code 0x8007232b DNS Name does not exist

This problem may occur if you use volume-licensed media to install Windows Vista.

OK. Lovely, but what do I do now?

I went back to the MSDN subscriber downloads to make sure I’d used the right product key, and read something interesting at the very bottom of the page:

Go to Start
Click Control Panel
Choose System
At the bottom is Windows activation
Click Change product key (do not select automatic activation as this is the KMS option)
Enter the correct product key (MAK) for the edition you are activating:
To activate Windows Server 2008 Datacenter use the key titled Windows Server 2008 Datacenter and Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
To activate Windows Server 2008 Enterprise use the key titled Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Standard
To activate Windows Server 2008 Standard use the key titled Windows Server 2008 Enterprise and Windows Server 2008 Standard
Click Next
After a minute you should see the Activation was successful confirmation
OK. Let’s make something totally NOT intuitive. Instead of Clicking on the “Activate Windows” link, I should have clicked on the “Change Product Key” link. Riiiiiight. Makes sense. And after clicking on the link, I should have entered the exact same product key in the dialog box that I used during setup. Ooooookaaaay. Suuuurrreee. And from that dialog box I should have told it to Activate windows. Aaaaah… Now I get it.

Bottom line: when you’re ready to activate Windows Server 2008 that you’ve downloaded from MSDN Subscriber Downloads, Click on the “Change product key” link on the Control Panel | System page. Just like the instructions tell you.

I kid you not.

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