Can't activate VM, inside VM HOST

Question

hello,

i have a HyperV Host, with Windows Server 2022 Standard successfully activated.

this Host was formatted with 2022 Standard evaluation and successfully activated with Standard key (bought from Microsoft 365 admin center).

the problem now is that i cannot activate the VM i created, i get Error code: 0xC004C020 (the product key was already used on another machine).

i have tried:

dism /Online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx /AcceptEula

and

slmgr /ipk xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

but nothing works.

Answer 1

hello,

this MAK key was inserted only at the HOST, nothing else

i will contact Microsoft because its very strange...

thank you!

Answer 2

Hello Alexandros Li,

error 0xC004C020 appears when the MAK exceeds its activation limit. By design, you can only activate a MAK a limited number of times.

To resolve this issue, you will need to contact Volume License Key Phone Numbers | Microsoft Volume Licensing for more activations to increase extension limit.

Hope it helps.

Best regards,

Lei