best way to activate windows server 2019 core kms

If your KMS host is running (or upgraded) to Windows Server 2012 R2, you can even have both roles on the same machine. You can continue to use KMS to activate your older clients and use ADBA for your newer clients. It also supports Office 2013 activation.īut here is the good news – KMS and ADBA are not mutually exclusive.

It can only activate Windows 8+ and Windows Server 2012+ operating systems. ADBA requirementsĪDBA does have a minimal OS requirement. A onetime configuration takes care of your entire AD infrastructure. ADBA, on the other hand, is a forest wide single instance activation method. If you manage a large multi-domain environment, KMS requires more administrative effort. If clients can’t contact AD, you probably have bigger problems.įinally, KMS configuration is domain specific. As long as a client can contact Active Directory, that client can activate. By using ADSI, you can view these activation objects.īecause the activation objects are stored within Active Directory, they are no longer node specific. ADBA stores its activation objects within Active Directory. If your KMS host goes down, clients will be unable to activate. With KMS, your activation objects is directly linked to your KMS host.

In my opinion, activations are one of those things. There are some things more suitable to a GUI than command line. If you are currently running KMS on a 2008 R2 machine or below, this will probably be a very welcome change.

ADBA is a GUI based activation mechanism.

Best way to activate windows server 2019 core kms