OSD – Activate VM using Hyper-V AVMA Key

If you are running Hyper-V on Windows Server 2016 DataCenter, then one nice feature is that you can activate VMs running a Server Standard / DataCenter guest OS using a special “Automatic Virtual Machine Activation” key.

The keys are:

Operating System	Key
Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials	K2XGM-NMBT3-2R6Q8-WF2FK-P36R2
Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard	DBGBW-NPF86-BJVTX-K3WKJ-MTB6V
Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter	Y4TGP-NPTV9-HTC2H-7MGQ3-DV4TW
Windows Server 2016 Essentials	B4YNW-62DX9-W8V6M-82649-MHBKQ
Windows Server 2016 Standard	C3RCX-M6NRP-6CXC9-TW2F2-4RHYD
Windows Server 2016 Datacenter	TMJ3Y-NTRTM-FJYXT-T22BY-CWG3J

So naturally, I incorporated it as a step in my Task Sequences for Server deployments.

First, I created a Group called “VM Guest Actions” and gave it the following condtions:

This ensure the following steps only apply to Virtual Machines..

For each step in this group we also need to ensure it only applies to qualifying VMs – in this case – 2016 DataCenter

Apply this to all steps in the group – changing the condition as appropriate for your Server OS.

First step we need is to assign the AVMA key, so create a new Command Line step with the following command:

Remember to replace the key for your version of windows..

Next step is to activate the key:

So, again, we need another Command Line step with the following command:

Again, remember to filter it for your desired OS Version.

Done!

Now when, you build a server OS and its a VM on a DataCenter Host, it will get activated.