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Saturday, November 20, 2010

View 4.5 Windows 7 Licenses Activation Failure: "View Composer agent initialization state error (16): Failed to activate the software license (waited 1755 seconds)"

Overview


To speed up the provisioning of Windows 7 desktops through VMWare View composer in View 4.5, I suggest to bypass the Windows 7 Activation all together. If you are using MAK or KMS, let the windows OS handle the activation. I previously posted the alternative method if you are using  MAK, but have found a large delay in provisioning after the Windows 7 VM's are added and ready to go. The licensing part of the Quickprep will work about 50% of the time. My solution is to disable the windows activation all together. Below are the details.

Also, as part of prepping the Windows 7 desktop I would also refer to post:

http://dharmgolf.blogspot.com/2010/11/vmware-view-45-fix-for-windows-7.html


Bypassing KMS license activation performed by View Composer on Windows 7 and Windows Vista operating systems.

Details

By default, the View Composer QuickPrep process uses Microsoft Key Management Service (KMS) to activate Windows 7 and Windows Vista guest operating systems. To make sure that View Composer properly activates the operating systems on linked-clone desktops, you must use KMS license activation on the parent virtual machine.

QuickPrep does not use other volume activation methods such as Multiple Activation Key (MAK) licensing.

CAUTION: View Composer does not support MAK license activation. Use MAK license activation at your own risk. For example, each recompose operation can increase the MAK license count, which can result in the unexpected depletion of MAK licenses.

Solution

To bypass license activation altogether:

1. In the guest operating system on the parent virtual machine, start the Windows Registry Editor and navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vmware-viewcomposer-ga

2. Navigate to the SkipLicenseActivation registry value. The default value is 0.

3. Set the value to 1.

4 comments:

  1. Tried that, still get windows activation coming up. Any idea on resolving this issue ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Did you bypass activation all together? after the change delete snapshots, new snapshot and recompose. May have to delete the desktops through view manager as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If you. Have a kms key assigned on base then ensure DNS is setup correctly for ams server and tcp port 1688 is open to server. Same for vista and win 7

    ReplyDelete
  4. If you need windows 7 activation key,you can go to www.aakeys.com to got.It works great. Recommend to you.

    ReplyDelete