Just over a week ago, I got my hands on a copy of Vista Enterprise. Since I was on the technical beta and had been focused on Vista Ultimate, I had not heard anything about the new activation methods for the corporate versions of Vista. It looks like there are two options Multiple Activation Key (MAK) and Key Management Service (KMS).

MAK acts much like the Volume License Keys (VLKs) that were used for XP, except that each MAK can only activate a certain number of systems and unless they are using the new proxy system, each of those systems will actually contact Microsoft’s activation servers once. The primary advantage of using MAK is that once you activate, the system never needs to check in again. This will likely be the choice for highly mobile systems that go for extended periods without network access.

KMS, on the other hand does not require you to put any keys on your Vista systems. You simply setup a KMS server (Vista or Longhorn only today, WS2003 in a couple months) and Vista clients will use a special DNS SRV record to find it and activate. After you install Vista, you have 30 days for the system to find the KMS and activate. Activated systems will then contact the KMS every 7 days. If a system is unable to find the KMS for 90 days, it will start giving the user warning messages and after 120 days Vista will go into ‘Reduced Functionality Mode’. The advantage of using KMS is that the individual systems never have a key stored locally, so there is no way your corporate key can be passed around by unauthorized users.

Tags: microsoft, vista, volume license, higher ed, corporate, activation, kms, mak