Has Microsoft started deactivating old Azure for Education Product Keys?

Question

I have various product keys (Windows 10 Education, Windows 11 Education, Windows Server 2019/DC, Windows Server 2022/DC) that I obtained through the Azure for Education (formally Dreamspark) program at my college. Recently, several of the Windows 10/11 product keys have stopped working, cannot be activated, and do not offer options to be activated. Attempting to do so gives the following error: "We can't activate Windows on this device because you don't have a valid digital license or product key. If you think you do have a valid license or key, select Troubleshoot below. Error code: 0xC004C060."

For context, I have a home lab that I use these product keys with, and I am constantly re-installing Windows 10/11 and activating the product. I had just installed Windows not a week ago, and it activated just fine using the key, however, today it will not activate after a re-install regardless of what I do, and the option for Phone Activation is completely missing. I have forced the phone activation prompt, but the activation wizard says it cannot activate windows after going through the prompts, and I have attempted to sign into my Microsoft Account which results in the same thing.

Microsoft support was also very unhelpful with this as I just wanted an answer to a simple question: Have the keys been deactivated, and why? Instead, I got bounced to two different departments with the last representative telling me to reach out to my Campus IT Team. Ironically, I am part of that team, and there is not a whole lot we can do in this situation; it's a Microsoft problem. On that same note, I don't want to bother our representative with home-user nonsense. So ...

Hey Microsoft! Can one of your support team members answer my question; that is why you pay them, right?

Please see the following answer about when Azure for Education product keys expire. According to this they don't, but I doubt that was a Microsoft representative that answered the question, so I am not sure how accurate that statement is.

***Moved from Windows / Windows 11 / Licensing and activation***

Answer 1

You can contact Microsoft Support (Global Customer Service phone numbers - Microsoft Support) directly to confirm the current status of your product key. If your product key has been used multiple times, they can help you to reset it.

Answer 2

Hello Aaron_from_IT,

thank you for posting on the Microsoft Community Forums.

Based on the description, I understand that your issue is related to Azure.

Since there are no engineers dedicated to Azure in this forum. In order to be able to deal with your questions quickly and efficiently, I recommend that you repost your questions in the Q&A forum, where there will be a dedicated engineer to provide you with a professional and effective response.

Here is a link to the Q&A forum: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/

Have a nice day.

Best regards,

Lei

Answer 3

But is this really an Azure issue?

I get that the license came from Azure for Education, but it still has everything to do with Windows Activation which, inherently, is a Windows issue at heart in my opinion. Before we send this off to "another department", can we at least descend down the rabbit hole a bit before that?

Answer 4

Microsoft has not started deactivating old Azure for Education product keys. However, it's possible that there may be other factors causing the issue you're experiencing.

One possible reason for the error message you're seeing is that the product key may have been activated too many times. Each product key has a limited number of activations, and if you've exceeded that limit, the key will no longer work.

Another possibility is that there may be an issue with the activation servers. In this case, you may need to wait a bit and try activating again later.

If the issue still persists, I recommend contact Microsoft support again for further assistance.

Answer 5

That seems like a likely scenario given how I use these product keys in my lab. Who could I reach out to directly to confirm that, and if that is the case, would support be able to reset the activations? On a side note, I am also curious where in the license agreement that it states activation of product keys are limited to a set number of activations. I get that is most likely in place to prevent piracy; annoying as it might be.