Activation Goals and Methods

This chart shows various activation goals and methods for the Windows client and server OSs and Office suite, depending on the channel through which the product was purchased. For relatively small numbers of activations, volume license customers may activate software through a Multiple Activation Key (MAK), which can be sent directly from each computer to Microsoft (“MAK Independent” in the chart), as is done with retail activation. Alternatively, data can be collected from multiple computers onto a single MAK proxy computer (MAK Proxy) and sent from that proxy computer to Microsoft. For larger activations, volume customers can use Key Management Services (KMS), in which keys are distributed exclusively from a server owned and hosted by the organization.

	Retail Purchase	Installed by OEM	Volume License Agreements
			MAK (Independent)	MAK Proxy	KMS
Goal	Make it harder to use more copies of a product than the license allows				Limit impact