Why is a fresh Enterprise Evaluation installation license expired?

Anonymous
2023-08-13T17:36:24+00:00

Hello,

normally whenever I would install the Windows Enterprise Evaluation it would automatically activate the 90-day license. This has changed however as this time I did a fresh install (already tried both Windows 10 and 11) I get the Windows License is expired message in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

The System->Activation menu says We can't activate Windows on this device right now. You can try activating again later or ... Error code: 0xC004C032.

When I run slmgr /ato to activate I sometimes (not sure what the reason for change is - maybe this changed after I tried to change the product key to what I found supposedly is a "generic Enterprise key for recovery") get the same error as above - 0xC004C032 (running slui on that returns The activation server reported that new time based activation is not available) or 0x80072F8F (A security error occured).

I read that syncing the date/time might be an issue but as far as I can tell its synced correctly with time.windows.com

Any ideas about what the issue could be? Or has something changed in how activation works for evaluation distributions?

Any input is appreciated

Thanks

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Licensing and activation

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-08-14T12:58:12+00:00

    Thank you very much for the info - I will try a shameless copy-paste there :)

    maybe it's just me but I feel like a little more effort could be put into advertising where and how to get support

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-08-24T01:19:15+00:00

    I had the same problem from mid-August until yesterday multiple times. A new install today (around 8/24 1:00 UTC) was activated with no problems.

    I used Windows 10 Enterprise Evaluation 22h2 ISO media (19045.2006.220908-0225.22h2_release_svc_refresh_CLIENTENTERPRISEEVAL_OEMRET_x64FRE_ja-jp.iso) from evaluation center recently.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-08-18T19:07:22+00:00

    Same problem here. I can’t activate evaluation versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11 currently.

    Some time ago there was a possibility to download Vmware environements for developing applications for MS Browsers under the link <https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/> (The link is dead and does not work anymore).

    It was possible to download a version with Edge under Windows 10 with the file name "MSEdge.Win10.VMware.zip" and a version under Windows 7 with IE11 with the file name "IE11.Win7.VMWare.zip".

    The version under Windows 10 can no longer be activated. But the version under Windows 7 still works. The version under Windows 7 can be currently activated/reactivated with slmgr /ato or slmgr /rearm.

    I guess that possibly other evaluation versions with Windows 7 still work as well.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-08-15T22:48:28+00:00

    Thank you very much for the info - I will try a shameless copy-paste there :)

    maybe it's just me but I feel like a little more effort could be put into advertising where and how to get support

    Did you post this anywhere else and find a solution?

    I don’t see it.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-08-14T06:56:25+00:00

    Hello,

    We are having the exact same problem. We have replicated this issue in 6 states around Australia. We reinstall the Windows 10 Enterprise evaluation version to hundreds of computers within a Microsoft Training environment and use a range of Win 10 versions. All have the same activation problem. Time was originally my first point of concern, then the embedded key.

    In our case, the partial key is: YG9R6

    You can get this by running CMD as admin, then type slmgr /dlv

    We tried downloading and installing the Great British version to try if the key or activation servers are different, but they are not. Onto the LTSC version!

    This looks to be an activation server issue to us. Have a look at these issues below. This has happened before. We have to get the attention of someone within Microsoft to reactivate these keys or publish new ones.

    Windows Enterprise 10 LTSC 2021 90 Day Free Evaluation . Expired Key - Microsoft Community

    Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC Evaluation - Dead on Arrival ("Product Key is Blocked") (microsoft.com)

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