Activation of Windows under VMWare

I have a MS Technet subscription and I'm going to call them with this question, however wanted to pick some people's brains here.

I've googled around too, and really wasn't able to find a clear answer.

I have in my VMWare Env a number of Win XP Clients and some Win 2003 servers. I want to get them all updated with Automatic Updates, however I am wondering if I activate them, what will happen, say if I have to blow away my VMWare env and start over.

Not sure how many times I can use the keys that I have.

thanks

Find more posts tagged with

SAVE $250 on Your Boot Camp — Use Code "EXAM26"

Exclusively for TechExams members for Infosec Boot Camps starting before April 30, 2026

View Boot Camps

Comments

dynamik

I've activated XP, Server 2003, etc. repeatedly for 2+ years. I have dozens of VMs fully activated.

tiersten

Unless you do significant changes to your VMware environment like changing physical CPU and several other virtual components at the same time, it shouldn't fail the checks that require reactivation. Even if you did, you can just call them up to reactivate if you've run out of attempts on that particular key.

Are these actual production VMs?

dynamik

The keys you get from TechNet are "Multiple Activation". These are for education/evaluational purposes. I haven't run into a limit for activations, so I just activate whenever I create a new VM.

RTmarc

If you are really worried about the activations in a test environment, clone the machines after you activate the master and then run NewSID to rename and generate a new SID.

JDMurray

Yes, backup the VMs after you activate them. If anything ever goes wrong, you can restore the VM from an already activated backup. This action doesn't violate Microsoft's EULA.

An alternative for Windows XP is the copy/replace-the-wpa.dbl file trick. This action does violate Microsoft's EULA.

JockVSJock

I called MS Technet support line and they basically said it is unlimited.

You can check how many times you have activated a product by looking in Technet under the downloads part.

The only bummer is that under Linux, VMWare only allows a person to have one snapshot, so I'm making them as I go along.

thanks

tiersten

JockVSJock wrote: »

The only bummer is that under Linux, VMWare only allows a person to have one snapshot, so I'm making them as I go along.

That is a limitation of VMware Server and not Linux. Nothing to stop you from just backing up the files anyway. If you want to clone then you'll need to edit the VM config file to alter the UUIDs and other settings however.

Hyper-Me

Hyper-V will let you keep a pile of snapshots per machine.

tiersten

Hyper-Me wrote: »

Hyper-V will let you keep a pile of snapshots per machine.

So will ESXi and ESX.