MAK Proxy Activation

Administrators can use a Multiple Activation Key (MAK) proxy computer to manage the activation of 25 or fewer Vista clients or five or fewer Windows Server 2008 servers by following these steps:

(1) The administrator gets a MAK with a specific number of activations from the Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center and installs the Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT) on a computer running Windows Vista, or Windows Server 2003 or 2008.

(2) The administrator can use the VAMT, Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), Group Policy (GP), Systems Management Server (SMS), and scripts to begin activation by collecting the Installation Identifier (IID), which is a hash generated from the Windows OS Product Key and hardware ID (a numeric identifier generated by polling hardware components).

(3) The MAK proxy computer, which is running the VAMT, uploads to Microsoft activation servers the MAK information and the IID for each computer being activated.

(4) The Microsoft activation servers return a Confirmation ID (CID), a digitally signed value returned by Microsoft to activate the system, to the MAK proxy.