Terminalworks Blog | Volume Activation Management Tool 3.1

Microsoft Volume Activation Management Toolkit is a free tool to manage and apply Microsoft licenses over the network. Administrators can use VAMT to remotely apply licenses to products like Windows OS and Microsoft Office. Clients does not have to connect to internet to activate, VAM tool machine act as a proxy on the activation process.

VAMT work with licenses such as KMS and MAK. Also this can use to generate reports on varies licensing activities. Latest version of the volume activation management tool is VAMT 3.1

Features of VAMT 3.1

Activate Windows, Office, Viso, and Project versions
Remotely activate systems using MAK and KMS keys
Active directory based activation – clients activated through active directory, only windows 8 & 2012 above supported.
PowerShell support
Proxy authentication – Clients does not require internet to activate, VAMT will route the activation process by itself.
License reporting are built into VAMT, this can be used to identify which computers are not in compliance.

Installing VAMT

Download ADK for windows 10
VAMT 3.1 comes with windows automated deployment toolkit. So you have to download it for VAMT
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1/9/8197FEB9-FABE-48FD-A537-7D8709586715/adk/adksetup.exe
Run the ADK setup
If required run the .NET framework 4.5 installation
Accept the agreement
Select Volume activation management tool and SQL express
Install
After successfully completed the installation, run the VAMT
You will be promoted to select the SQL database which will be hosting the VAMT data. If your environment is having a SQL database server you can select that one or use the SQL express edition which can be installed from the ADK itself. For this article I’m using the SQL Edition comes with the ADK. Or else you can use following link to download the SQL Express 2012.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29062
Select Create New Database
Give a database name and click connect
It will create the database and connect to it

Adding Product Keys

You need to insert product keys to VAMT before activating products, keys such as Windows KMS, Windows MAK and Office keys can be imported.

Open VAMT console and go to the product keys section
Right click and select Add Product Keys..
Enter the product key or keys and click Add Keys

Activate using VAMT

To activate, you have discover the products and push the license key to them using VAMT. Products can be discovered using Active directory, IP address or LDAP query. For this article I’m doing an AD discovery.

Open VAMT console and go to the Windows product area
Right click and select discover products
Select the search method and click search.
Select the required computer that you need to add the MAK key, Right click on it and select Update License State
It will refresh the license information of the computer and show the products that need activation.
Right click on the client computer and select Install product key
Select the product key and click Install
After adding the license you have to activate it. You can either activate it online or select the proxy activation.

Online Activation – Each Client computer connect to the Microsoft activation center to get activated, client and the VAMT required to have internet.
Proxy Activation – VAMT host will connect the Microsoft activation center and pass the clients activation information. Client does not have to have the internet, only the VAMT.

Note – for this article I’m doing a proxy activation
Select proxy activation
Using this method you can activate office and other products as well, also you can use Active directory activation and KMS activation.

Reporting with VAMT

Volume Activation by Type - this report list all products VAMT has discovered that have a GVLK installed. The products are grouped by which volume activation type is responsible for activating the product.
Not Activated Product Report – list all products VAMT has discovered that are currently not activated
Multiple Activation Product Report – lists all products VAMT has discovered that currently have a MAK installed.
Duplicate Client Machine ID Report – this report helps to identify machines in the environment which are running images that were not properly generalized by using the Sysprep tool before deployment.
At Risk Products Report – lists all products VAMT has discovered that have a GVLK installed and that have fewer than 90 days until license expiration. Machines on this list may be having difficulty communicating with a Volume Activation Authority and are at risk of failing into an unlicensed state.

References

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff686878.aspx#_Toc257201349

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh824945.aspx

Hope this article is useful

Cheers

Asitha De Silva

Asitha De Silva

Consultant Cloud Solutions

Expert in architecting and implementing cloud-based infrastructure solutions.

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