Datasheet

Planning and Managing Client Licensing and Activation

Figure 1.13 shows the VAMT with several computers added to a group named

SecureNetwork. In the ﬁgure, one computer has already been activated with a retail (non-

MAK) key. The other computers have not been activated yet.

FIGURE 1.13 Using VAMT to manage activation

Inventory and Licensing Compliance Audits

The biggest beneﬁt of using VAMT with MAK is the ability to inventory your licenses and

help with licensing audits. A license audit is accomplished by identifying what software is

installed and then comparing it to what software has been purchased.

Once you add MAKs to VAMT, you can access the Refresh Remaining Count command

to query the Microsoft licensing site and identify exactly how many remaining activations

exist for the MAK. This tells you both how many licenses are purchased for any MAK you

add to VAMT and how many remain.

In large organizations, license audits will often be accomplished using advanced tools

such as System Center Conﬁguration Manager (SCCM).

Using a MAK Proxy

Although you can use VAMT to activate clients with a MAK, you may have noticed a prob-

lem for the computers working in an isolated network. By deﬁnition, the isolated network

wouldn’t have access to the Internet. On one hand, you would use VAMT for activation of

computers in isolated networks, but on the other hand, the VAMT computer accesses both

the network and the Internet, which would violate the security rules of ensuring the iso-

lated network remains isolated.

Instead, you can use VAMT as a MAK proxy. One instance of VAMT is in the secure

network and captures data from the secure computers. Another instance of VAMT is

installed on a computer with access to the Internet. It acts as a proxy to connect to the

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