Forum Discussion
Hans1310
Apr 13, 2022Copper Contributor
Question regarding ROK activation
Hey,
I got two ROK Windows licenses (Windows Datacenter) and I would like to ask how to use them in the KMS (or in the VAMT).
It would be nice if you can provide me some information / link how to add them. In the documentation section I could not find any information about this.
many thanks in advance.
best regards
Hans
- Alban1999Iron ContributorIndeed, ROK are OEM keys - you cannot manage like you can manage KMS keys (this is one of their numerous limitations).
ROK keys are attached to physical servers, themselves preinstalled with an operating system customized by the OEM.
If you choose to configure those physical servers as Hyper-V servers, you can activate VM installed on them using AVMA activation. ROK key will activate hypervisors themselves and VM indirectly.- "ROK keys are attached to physical servers"
Except in EU.
Do you know any other limitations Alban?
If I am not mistaken ROK / OEM keys are not part of volume licensing so there are no CSVLK (KMS) keys by design.
I fear this is a route we are going because of increased benefits of ROK / OEM vs VL (in Europe / Germany), plus when you order licenses via New Commerce Experience (NCE) as part of Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA aka CSP), then you also do not get any KMS key anymore.For proper mass activation / management you should consider to use AVMA when using Hyper-V or Azure StackHCI or VAMT from the latest ADK
Mind this one has a small bug, which is not yet fixed afaik, so you need the workaround as described in the post.