You may have many original Windows Keys but they are useless while using it with Virtual Machines. Or, You can create a VM on your windows machine to activate it. 😀
The Windows Keys are defined to the motherboard after activation and as you know, our virtual machines have virtual motherboards and they are valid until we destroy them.
KMS is the abbreviation of Key Management Services which is widely used for companies, state buildings etc. to activate windows for the computers by using their licence Keys. KMS Servers are installed on Windows Servers but here, the installation process will be on a CentOS machine. In short, this article is a KMS Server installation with Centos7 for LAN activation operations.
There are lots of KMS Servers out there. Why just don’t we use them to activate?
Because, a KMS server request with TCP protocol and the server will get your router’s ip address, windows version, etc. If that server is built by bad people, they can attack your PC or router or both.
1 – Download the CentOS
Download the Centos with this link. I have chosen the x86_64 architecture and Centos7 everything iso because i would like to install a full GUI centos distro.
Install it with your favourite Virtualization Software.
When the installation complete, the reboot process will be done manually. After the reboot, the licencing page will come. Accept the licence agreement and continue. Enter your pass and log in. You can find out the Centos VM ip by using your router web interface or from settings of OS.
2 – Installation of KMS Server
1 – Connect with SSH to your CentOS KMS as root
2 – Stop and Disable the firewall
First, we need to connect our VM by using SSH. Then, we will disable the firewall because we will request for activation and we don’t want the firewall ignores our request. The terminal codes are given below.
$ ssh root@ipaddress
$ firewall-cmd state
$ systemctl stop firewalld
$ systemctl disable firewalld
3 – Copy the installation file into install.sh
Now, the KMS server installation is need to be done.
First, an install.sh file need to be created. Go to the home folder and create it. Open this text and copy it.
Then, use your favourite text editor and modify it.
Final step, the install.sh file need to be executable. Therefore, chmod 755 code block is needed at this phase.
The terminal commands are given below and favourite text editor is chosen as nano. If you want to use vim, you can use it.
$ cd /home/
$ nano install.sh
$ chmod 755 install.sh
CTRL + X to exit and Save it by Clicking Y and hit Enter. Now we need to run it to install.
WINDOWS 10 – 11 ACTIVATION
CentOS VM is running and active right now. A windows OS activation will be executed here.
The windows key which is given below is the official windows volume licence key which is published by windows. You can check it from here.
The Command Prompt or Windows Terminal is need to be run as administrator. If it is not runned as administrator, the warning message will pop up after the first command.
# slmgr /ipk W269N-WFGWX-YVC9B-4J6C9-T83GX
# slmgr /skms CentOS_VM_IP_Address
# slmgr /ato
As you see the figure above, the windows is activated. It is not activated permenantly. It is activated for 6 months. If your first six months passed. you need to re-activate your windows again. Now, lets check the duration time.
# slmgr /dlv
CentOS 7 KMS Server is done and fully functional.
