Remove KMS hosts from the domain

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Ahmad Jayyusi Posted: 03-09-2010 2:36 PM

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Hi all,

We have many machines \ servers that have been -mistakenly- activated with KMS Key. We need to remove them all and install only one KMS server. I did delete thier records from the DNS. Now how to remove the KMS key from each machine and install the MAK key. Appreciate if there is a step-by-step guide to do this.

Thanks and regards

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Omar Alomari replied on 03-09-2010 3:13 PM

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It seems that you know exactly which servers have a KMS Key, then if these servers are windows 2008 then use change product key method from my computer properties. If these computers are Windows server 2003 then use the method described in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918342

I hope that this will help you.

Regards,
Omari

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Ahmad Jayyusi replied on 03-09-2010 4:27 PM

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So once the product key is change, will the KMS service be uninstalled? and the key management service node in the event viewer be removed?

best regards,

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Omar Alomari replied on 03-10-2010 12:00 PM

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The key management service node will appear in the event viewer node even after changing the product key, however; I think you should not see new events, because KMS clients records KMS related events on the application log.

You can make sure that the key changed successfully by running this command:
slmgr /dlv

The description field will tell you which license is currently installed:

If it is a MAK machine it will appear as:

Description: Windows Operating System - Windows(R) 7, VOLUME_MAK channel

If it is a KMS Client machine it will appear as:

Description: Windows Operating System– Windows(R) 7, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel.

If it is a KMS host machine it will appear as:

Description: Windows Operating System - Windows Server), VOLUME_KMS_B channel

Description: Windows Operating System - Windows(R) 7, VOLUME_KMS channel

Description: Windows Operating System - Windows(R) 7, VOLUME_KMS_A channel

Description: Windows Operating System - Windows(R) 7, VOLUME_KMS_C channel

The following link contains interesting information to troubleshoot KMS problems:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee939272.aspx

Regards,
Omari

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skhairudin replied on 03-16-2010 3:14 PM

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The service is enabled when a KMS host is entered, if the KMS host is removed the service is disabled. It's not installed or uninstalled, it's either enabled or disabled.

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Ahmad Jayyusi replied on 03-16-2010 9:36 PM

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Thanks all my friends. I have now one Win2K8 R2 Enterprise server as a KMS server. Now, Microsoft documentation says that KMS server will not start activating machines till the count of un-activated machines is at least 25 machines for Windows 7 or 5 for Windows Server 2008 -correct me please if I am wrong- , so if you try to activate a machine before that count reaches 25 as attached in the image then you will receive the error code 0xC004F038 demonstrated in the following link:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938450. What do you think guys? How can we test our KMs if we do not have un-activated 25 Windows 7 machines?

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Omar Alomari replied on 03-17-2010 12:54 AM

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Hi Stack111;

The link below is for a very helpful white paper titled: “Top 5 Product Key Activation Challenges IT Pros encountered and Solved”, the last case in this document (case #5) is identical to your case:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=8300A9C7-48C0-4CA8-9F1E-91D8CE02ABD8&displaylang=en&displaylang=en

I hope that this white paper will help you

Regards,
Omari