Has anyone had issues activating Windows in a VM on Scale? I’ve never had this issue, either with previous versions of Scale or other virtualization platforms. Windows VMs (I’ve tried Server 2019, Server 2022, and Windows 10 Pro) refuse to activate, showing “We can’t activate Windows own this device because you don’t have a valid digital license or product key” (error code 0xC004C003). These are all valid keys from sealed packages, so I am sure that they are valid. It looks to me like there is some issue with the key being stored in the virtual smbios region, but that is speculation on my part.
I’ve searched and found no similar situations, except for some who extract the OEM smbios information to use host licenses in VMs, which I am not trying to do. I merely want to use one of the licenses I’ve purchased in a VM.
I’ve tried both UEFI and BIOS booting, as well as with and without HyperV Enlightenments.
The specific version of each windows edition may need checking, there are several kb entries about activation issues on certain releases. Almost all of them say to update to the latest before attempting activation.
Thanks, updates are important here with some of the activation issues, but that does not appear to be the case here. This happens with updates installed in Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, and Windows 10.
Turns out these were OEM licenses, which used to activate on VMs, but apparently do not anymore. I purchased a retail license and it worked as expected. Thanks everyone!
