FEATURE REQUEST - Welcome to a new era of activation tooling - this is not an announcement

[Karl-WE]

Dear Windows Server Team,
with exception of Hyper-V Clusters using AVMA or Azure (HCI) Activation, I really hope this this feature request will bear some fruits.

With the deprecation / revoked support and future removal of Visual Basic Scripting slmgr.vbs is certainly one of the most used scripts in this regard. Probably, next to some printmgr.vbs stuff some might still rely on.

Since we believe you do not want to update Server Manager anymore, that this feature request might be helpful.

Affects:
Windows Client
Windows Server
sconfig
Windows Admin Center (in Azure)

does not affect (I believe since we have a config plane here)
Azure Stack HCI 

How about bringing Windows Activation and Management over to WAC?
This would ultimately make WAC more needed for average users

- A possible WAC extension (since there are changes like product version and names) for Windows Server and Client activation.

- A PowerShell (preferably PS7) commandlets for all of these so these could be used as an alternative to WAC plus of course used by sconfig (starting from WS 2022).


proposed features of this extension / PShell commandlets:
- install / uninstall key(s)
- view keys
- view activation status
- activate key
- show remaining activation key count (MAK, OEM)
- show activation source (ADBA, AVMA, KMS, MAK, OEM)
- links to learn.microsoft.com about AVMA generic keys, how AVMA works, ADBA, VAMT, and at last KMS for legacy systems.
- more verbose error messages, if any

related WAC feedback item

[#2]

When promoting the idea within the community we came to a point that a PShell Module for activation management is really required for IT professionals esp. large scaled (Providers). Thank you Bronson Magnan for fueling this from your professional perspective. 

In this case I would be even absolutely fine to drop the issue report of VAMT from the ADK and not fixing the WS 2019 / 2022 Key issue in VAMT, if we see this coming instead, just to save dev time. And even dropping VAMT altogether as it would no longer feasible, if the PSModule could also replace all Office VBS Activation setups.

fyi @abbodi1406 

on a sidenode: 
With that said, I had one great success at a customer to convert an existing complex VBS script into PowerShell using BingGPT Enterprise. I was really amazed how it cleaned up the "Spaghetti code" of the past in seconds. 

Now they are using this converted script in production. 

This could also be helpful for the product groups that use VBS today. Such as slmgr, printmgr.vbs, office activation vbs (2010 (need a Win10 fix anyway) - 2021), and also MDT, while deprecated for Windows 11 and potentially vNext deployment, too, which I suspect rather to check and deal with the new HW requirements or whatever.

[#3]

Can you try slmgr.vbs or one of the Office scrub scripts?
https://github.com/OfficeDev/Office-IT-Pro-Deployment-Scripts/blob/master/Office-ProPlus-Deployment/...

[#4]

Hey @abbodi1406 do you mean I should try if GPT enterprise will convert the vbs into PowerShell? But then by what means? I wouldn't be able to code a module as proposed. 

[#5]

I don't really how GPT enterprise (or any GPT) works

[#6]

if you'd like to talk about it more, write me via DM Abbodi, I am looking forward to meeting with you.

[#7]

This topic has received an actual drive and new deprecation schedule.
Check comments. At this point in time I would be glad to help with the required action and share further feedback on how to make activation great without VBScript

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/vbscript-deprecation-timelines-and-next-s...