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How to find out how many product keys are applied and how many VM can be installed

Copper Contributor

We have a host server with Windows Server 2022 on it, and 6 product keys for the Standard ed. are bought for it. Taking the cores into account, that would be good for 2x Windows Server 2022 Std, and hence 4 Hyper-V Windows 2022 Std virtual servers can be run on it.

How do I get those 6 product keys on the server? (Or update the installation)

How do I find out how many licenses/product keys were applied? (Preferably which ones)

The final goal is to integrate a message about the legal availability to add another virtual server on the host, as we have powershell scripts that automatically install yet another virtual server based on virtual disks. As per datacenter editions, there was no need for this, but with Standard editions, that now is an issue. 

1 Reply
Hi,
what license did you buy exactly? How many Cores does your host have?
Asuming you have Server 2022 Standard on that host you can only install 1 HyperV host Role and 2 virtual machines.

If you need more VM´s you need to buy additional 2022 Std keys (for all cores) and install the key on the VM
You can read the differences between DC and Std here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/editions-comparison-windows-server-2022

https://petri.com/understanding-windows-server-2022-licensing/

You install one Key on the Host and the addon cores key goes to your desk / documentation folder for any possible MS Audit. The first 2 VM´s could use also the same key as the Host and any additional VM needs its own license for all cores.

Hope that makes sense and is accurate, if someone finds a mistake please correct me.

How to get product key:

admin cmd: wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

admin powershell: PowerShell "(Get-WmiObject -query ‘select * fromSoftwareLicensingService’).OA3xOriginalProductKey