Windows 10 IOT Enterprise - Offline Activation

Question

Hi,

Is it possible to perform an offline activation for Windows 10 2019 IOT Enterprise?
some of our customers have no internet connections due to security,
Is there still an option to activate windows via Phone call or any other wat that will not require an active internet connection?

Thanks!

Answer 1

If the devices never get connected to the internet, then they will never need to be activated. This is known as deferred activation.

If the devices might get connected to the internet, then I recommend that you activate the systems in production before you ship to the customers.

Answer 2

@Baruch, Rubi
Hi,
As Sean-Liming said, Windows 10 IoT offers a third option, allowing devices not connected to the Internet to remain in a deferred activation state. This option is new to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise.

Also, you could use the Volume Activation Management Tool in a proxy server to activate the system.
This activation method enables you to perform volume activation for products that are installed on client computers that do not have Internet access.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/volume-activation/use-the-volume-activation-management-tool-client
Hope above information can help you.

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Answer 3

Hi,

Thanks for the response.
Do you know if deferred activation has some limitations, such as less access to windows settings, etc.?

Answer 4

Thanks for all the answers; my last question does Phone activation is still available?

Answer 5

Thanks, this is really helpful for us, we have prepared Windows 10 IoT images are are mysteriously being deactivated, as part of our production procedure where the device is temporarily configured to go online and update the virus scanner definitions.

Our embedded device, we don't actually know if our end users use them online or offline, so our intention is to ship them in deferred activation state, however if the end user puts it online, they may need to activate, this is fine, we understand that.

My question;

If the device starts it's life in deferred activation state, and then goes online, for something like AV definition updates, which it then deactivates itself, can it be put back to deferred activation state? For example, by activating it?

I'm thinking of the use case, where the device start's it's life in deferred activation, goes online for a very short period during production, and then spends it's entire life offline. I'm concerned that an online activation might have a shelf-life.

It seems there are 3 scenarios:

1/ Never online (always deferred activation), we know this works
2/ Always online (user will have to activate), we know this works.
3/ Temporary online during production then forever offline ????