Wow. I haven't write a single line since a few months. Been busy I guess.
So. Currently I am playing with View 4.6 (and some other things covered by NDA :))
The worst part about creating a windows pool currently is Windows Genuine Advantage or Windows Activation Technologies. You have basically 4 ways of getting an activated - Windows 7 - pool:
This happens, because QuickPrep, by default, tries to KMS activate after changing the SID, and will get into a 10 minutes retrying loop if slmgr service on the cloned desktop encounters the error mentioned above. If You provision at least 25 at once - first time speaking of course - this won't happen.
To circumvent this failure of QuickPrep, VMware distributed a Knowledge Base article: kb.vmware.com/kb/1026556. It says You can disable the KMS activation part of QuickPrep, and skip activation completely, or do MAK for the slowly killing thing. The windows will try to activate itself of course, but at least will be in available state in the View Manager. After You have this, You can KMS activate Office 2010 too, a nice howto is at blogs.technet.com. If You setup the KMS server to know about office too (1meg patch, here), it will work automatically.
That's all folks...
So. Currently I am playing with View 4.6 (and some other things covered by NDA :))
The worst part about creating a windows pool currently is Windows Genuine Advantage or Windows Activation Technologies. You have basically 4 ways of getting an activated - Windows 7 - pool:
- MAK - Multiple Activation Key. This Works, but You are slowly killing Your key counter every time You provision a new desktop.
- KMS - Key Management Server. The preferred way both by MS and VMware. We'll see this one below.
- OEM Image - With some BIOS hacks (I am not sure of this one), You probably can install a Win7 OEM that won't kill activation after a QuickPrep/Sysprep.
- Some nicely "prepared" windows, for example with ChewWGA. We should not speak about this :)
This happens, because QuickPrep, by default, tries to KMS activate after changing the SID, and will get into a 10 minutes retrying loop if slmgr service on the cloned desktop encounters the error mentioned above. If You provision at least 25 at once - first time speaking of course - this won't happen.
To circumvent this failure of QuickPrep, VMware distributed a Knowledge Base article: kb.vmware.com/kb/1026556. It says You can disable the KMS activation part of QuickPrep, and skip activation completely, or do MAK for the slowly killing thing. The windows will try to activate itself of course, but at least will be in available state in the View Manager. After You have this, You can KMS activate Office 2010 too, a nice howto is at blogs.technet.com. If You setup the KMS server to know about office too (1meg patch, here), it will work automatically.
That's all folks...
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