Office 2010 KMS Client Activation troubleshooting

Occasionally we have an issue with Office 2010 not activating with our Office KMS activation server.


Here are the key steps we take to get it working quickly again from the client side. I'm assuming that the KMS server is working correctly.

The lines are run from the command prompt.  You need to start the command prompt with admin rights or you will get access denied errors.

1.  Make sure the time and timezone is set correctly on the client machine.  If the time is off by a lot it will not activate.

2. Launch a command window with elevated privileges.
(Type cmd in the search bar to locate the command window, Right click on cmd and click Run as administrator from the context menu, or select cmd and hit CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER on the keyboard. ◦Click Yes at the User Account Control prompt to open the command window with elevated privileges)


3. At the command prompt, change to the Office14 folder (this is where the ospp.vbs script is located by default)

cd \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\

4.  You could start with manually trying to activate Office to see if the resulting error message is helpful for troubleshooting.  At the command prompt type:

cscript ospp.vbs /act

5. Run this command to manually specify the IP address of your Office KMS Server.

cscript ospp.vbs /sethst:10.80.0.8     (Use the IP address of your Office KMS Server)

4. Run this command to activate Office with the KMS server:

cscript ospp.vbs /act

More in-depth troubleshooting ideas can be found here if the above doesn't work for you
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2009/12/18/volume-activation-tips-and-tricks.aspx

Troubleshooting Windows 7 or WIndows 8 OS Client Activations that use a KMS Server

Occasionally we have an issue with an existing Windows 7 or Windows 8 machines not being able to activate automatically from our KMS Server or a new machine not registering the first time.



Here are the key steps we take to get it working quickly again from the client side. I'm assuming of course that the KMS server is working correctly.

The lines are run from the command prompt.  You need to start the command prompt with admin rights or you will get access denied errors.

1.  Make sure the time and timezone is set correctly on the client machine.  If the time is off by a lot it will not activate.

2.  From a command prompt,  we can first try the obvious, and manually activate the client,  but I am assuming that this will fail.

slmgr /ato

3.  Next we can try and get some info about the status that might help to troubleshoot the problem.

slmgr /dlv show status

4.  Make sure Windows  is using a KMS key (not MAK).  You can uninstall and then reinstall the KMS key to be sure.

First uninstall the key, from the command prompt.

slmgr /upk  uninstall license

Then depending on if it is a Windows 8 or Windows 7 machine run one of the following commands.  You can get a list of Microsoft KMS Client keys here

slmgr /ipk NG4HW-VH26C-733KW-K6F98-J8CK4    (Windows 8  Pro KMS Key)

slgmr /ipk FJ82H-XT6CR-J8D7P-XQJJ2-GPDD4  (Windows 7 Pro KMS Key)

5.  Then you can manually tell the client where to find the KMS server

slmgr /skms 10.80.0.24    (Use the internal IP address of your KMS server

6.  And now run slmgr /at again to try and register.

For more in-depth troubleshooting,  you can try this page
http://bjornhouben.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/microsoft-troubleshooting-key-management-service-kms-activation/

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