In this post we are going to look at using the KMS Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) to manually activate a product on a workgroup computer inside the network.

Before we begin, a good thing to remember when dealing with computers in workgroups is, it’s important to use the IP address assigned to the workstation as a means of identifying it via queries in the GUI, rather than it’s hostname. The reason being is due to the fact that the workgroup computer won’t have a A Pointer Record in DNS, unless one has been created by yourself or someone else manually.

So essentially anything outside of the domain, without a manually created record in DNS, doesn’t exist when queried via a hostname. (When a computer is joined a domain a DNS record is created automatically)

If you are experiencing errors with your KMS Server check out my post on all the common errors and how to troubleshoot/fix them.

---

Firstly – Open Volume Activation Management Tool on your KMS Server. If you don’t have it installed you can get it here.

Once open click on the Office tab on the left side and then Discover Products on the right side in the actions pane.

Select Manually enter name or IP Address on the drop down and then the IP of the workstation.

The workstation should now have populated in the discovered list – if you can’t see it in the Office tab, check the Windows tab under Products on the left hand side.

Now we need to get an update of the current status. To do this we right click the workstation showing under it’s IP and choose Update License Status, followed by Alternative credential

Enter in the local administrator username/password to the workstation

If KMS can communicate with the workstation and nothing is being blocked. The workstation should now be in the Office tab, if it wasn’t previously and it will be reporting the current license status of the Windows Product.

You can now go ahead and activate the product by right clicking the workstation again and choosing Activate, Activate Volume License and then Alternative Credentials.

Enter in the local administrator username/password to the workstation again.

If successful the GUI will declare that the product has successfully activated with the KMS Server.

Completed – congratulations you have remotely activated a Windows Product on workgroup computer.

If you want to do the same thing using PowerShell you can try the command below:

slmgr.vbs [MachineName [User Password]] [<Option>]

Which in this situation would end up looking like –

slmgr.vbs 10.90.210.37 10.90.210.37\Administrator ThePassword /ato

Hope this was helpful!

 

---

Thanks for reading – feel free to follow and stay updated 🙂  View sysadminguides’s profile on Facebook View GuidesSysadmin’s profile on Twitter View 115372466162675927272’s profile on Google+