KMS Activation - Server 2016

Question

Hi All,

I am trying to activate a Windows server 2016 which was already activated but all of a sudden it showed not activated

I ran the KMS activation as below and i get the error. Do i need to call activation number? Please advice

slmgr -ckms
slmgr -skms <kms server ip>
slmgr -ato

Answer 1

Hello,
So the error message indicates that you are using a MAK key , however you indicate usage of a KMS key.
If you are using KMS and this is not the the KMS host, you may want to try changing the product key to the default KMS client key for the edition o Windows server 2016 that you have installed.
If you want to use the MAK key that you have installed, you should have your Volume License Administrator contact Microsoft Volume Licensing Support to request additional activation be added to your MAK key.

Answer 2

“the activation server 2008 reported that the multiple Activation key has exceeded its limit”
This sentence indicates that your server now using MAK activation rather than KMS.
If you have KMS server and make sure this server 2016 has configured correct DNS, you should set KMS client setup key on this Server 2016 and run slmgr -ato again for activation.
PS:
KMS Client Setup Key
Windows Server 2016 Datacenter CB7KF-BWN84-R7R2Y-793K2-8XDDG
Windows Server 2016 Standard WC2BQ-8NRM3-FDDYY-2BFGV-KHKQY