{"id":8246,"date":"2019-01-11T16:36:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T15:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/159.69.82.204\/win\/?p=8246"},"modified":"2019-04-11T13:38:05","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T11:38:05","slug":"microsoft-explains-the-windows-7-kms-activation-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/11\/microsoft-explains-the-windows-7-kms-activation-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft explains the Windows 7 KMS activation issue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"win7\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"win7\" src=\"https:\/\/www.borncity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/win7_thumb1.jpg\" width=\"44\" align=\"left\" height=\"42\"> [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.borncity.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/11\/microsoft-erklrt-den-windows-7-kms-aktivierungsfehler\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">German<\/a>]On January 8, 2019, some administrators in enterprise environments observed KMS activation errors on Windows 7 clients. Windows 7 was reported as 'not genuine' (error code 0xC004F200). Now Microsoft has provided some explanation. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/vg04.met.vgwort.de\/na\/e547ce3ae2cd445fb54b0c403c3c55bb\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\">I've covered the issue within my blog post <a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/10\/update-kb971033-bricks-windows-7-genuine-0xc004f200\/\">Update KB971033\/KB4480960\/KB4480970 bricks Windows 7 Genuine (0xc004f200)<\/a>. The publishing, Microsoft blamed KB4480960\/KB4480970 to brick Windows 7 KMS activation. At that time the following was known: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The KMS activation issue occurs only on Windows 7 clients, where the activation update <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/de-de\/help\/971033\/description-of-the-update-for-windows-activation-technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB971033<\/a> (dated 4\/19\/2018) was installed.\n<li>This update was never scheduled for KMS activation environment \u2013 and Microsoft later posted a KB article, recommending not to install this update in volume licenced KMS environments.\n<li>The update could only be downloaded by Admins from the Microsoft Download Center and need to be installed manuelly on Windows 7 clients. No automatic update was prevented. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To sum it up: Installing update <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/de-de\/help\/971033\/description-of-the-update-for-windows-activation-technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB971033<\/a> wasn't recommended nor necessary in KMS environments. The sole purpose was to detect validation errors and activation exploits in Windows 7 clients. According to Microsoft KB article, the update also detects possible manipulating attempts with important Windows 7 system files.<\/p>\n<ul>Unfortunately, the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/de-de\/help\/4480960\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB4480960<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/de-de\/help\/4480970\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB4480970<\/a> updates for Windows 7 were released on January 8, 2019. This seemed to result in a coincidence, and Microsoft had also provided short notes in the linked KB articles. In the meantime, however, the corresponding text has been revised. We can't blame those update for the KMS activation issue.&nbsp; <\/ul>\n<h2>Microsoft explains the issue<\/h2>\n<p>On January 10, 2019 Microsoft published the article <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/help\/4487266\/activation-failures-and-not-genuine-notifications-on-vl-win-7-kms-clie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Activation failures and \"not genuine\" notifications around January 8, 2019, on volume-licensed Windows 7 KMS clients<\/a> with more insights. Microsoft confirms that the KMS activation problems only occurred if the activation update <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/de-de\/help\/971033\/description-of-the-update-for-windows-activation-technologies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB971033<\/a> (from 4\/19\/2018) was installed on the following clients with volume license activation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Windows 7 Professional\n<li>Windows 7 Professional N\n<li>Windows 7 Professional E\n<li>Windows 7 Enterprise\n<li>Windows 7 Enterprise N\n<li>Windows 7 Enterprise E<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>n this scenario it could happen that the Windows 7 clients reported the error dialog <em>Windows Activation Windows is not genuine<\/em> with the error code 0xC004F200.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Fehlercode 0xC004F200 \" alt=\"Fehlercode 0xC004F200 \" src=\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/w200afY.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>At the same time, affected Windows 7 clients fell into non-activated mode, i.e. the desktop showed a black background and the watermark was displayed in the lower right corner with the message that Windows is not genuine.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>The command <em>slmgr \/dlv<\/em> returned the error 0xC004F200. A new activation attempt with the command <em>slmgr \/ato <\/em>failed because Microsoft reported an invalid Windows 7 copy. As far as everything is known. New to the Microsoft article is the hint to the root cause:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>A recent update to the Microsoft Activation and Validation unintentionally caused a \"not genuine\" error on volume-licensed Windows 7 clients that had <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/help\/971033\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB971033<\/a> installed. The change was introduced at 10:00:00 UTC on January 8, 2019, and was reverted at 4:30:00 UTC on January 9, 2019.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Within the <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/help\/4487266\/activation-failures-and-not-genuine-notifications-on-vl-win-7-kms-clie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB article<\/a> Microsoft recommends strongly to uninstall <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/help\/971033\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB971033<\/a> on Windows 7 clients using Key Management Service (KMS) or Multiple Activation Key (MAK) volume activation. The kb article contains hints how administrators can check on the clients if KB971033 is installed (e.g. with <em>wmic qfe where HotFixID=\"KB971033\"<\/em>) and how to uninstall it (e.g. with <em>wusa \/uninstall \/kb:971033<\/em>). After uninstalling update KB971033 on the affected Windows 7 clients, the activation must be performed again. To do this, Microsoft has provided the following command sequence, which must be executed in a command prompt with administrative privileges.<\/p>\n<pre>net stop sppuinotify\nsc config sppuinotify start= disabled\nnet stop sppsvc\ndel %windir%\\system32\\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 \/ah\ndel %windir%\\system32\\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 \/ah\ndel %windir%\\ServiceProfiles\\NetworkService\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\\tokens.dat\ndel %windir%\\ServiceProfiles\\NetworkService\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\\cache\\cache.dat\nnet start sppsvc\ncscript c:\\windows\\system32\\slmgr.vbs \/ipk [KMS Client-Key]\ncscript c:\\windows\\system32\\slmgr.vbs \/ato\nsc config sppuinotify start= demand<\/pre>\n<p>It's imho recommended to insert the above commands into a .bat file and to run it via <em>Run as administrator<\/em>. It is important that the placeholder [KMS Client-Key] is replaced by the client-specific key. Microsoft specifies the KMS Client Setup keys for each edition of Windows 7 in <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/help\/4487266\/activation-failures-and-not-genuine-notifications-on-vl-win-7-kms-clie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">this document<\/a>. If in doubt, please refer to the Microsoft <a href=\"https:\/\/support.microsoft.com\/en-us\/help\/4487266\/activation-failures-and-not-genuine-notifications-on-vl-win-7-kms-clie\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">KB article<\/a> for details. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Similar articles:<br \/><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/04\/microsoft-office-patchday-january-2-2019\/\">Microsoft Office Patchday (January 2, 2019)<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/05\/office-2010-updates-for-january-2019-has-been-pulled\/\">Office 2010 Updates for January 2019 has been pulled<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/09\/microsoft-security-update-summary-january-8-2019\/\">Microsoft Security Update Summary (January 8, 2019)<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/09\/patchday-updates-for-windows-7-8-1-server-jan-8-2019\/\">Patchday: Updates for Windows 7\/8.1\/Server Jan. 8, 2019<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/09\/patchday-windows-10-updates-january-8-2019\/\">Patchday Windows 10-Updates (January 8, 2019)<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/?p=8226\">Patchday Microsoft Office Updates (January 8, 2019)<\/a><br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/10\/update-kb971033-bricks-windows-7-genuine-0xc004f200\/\">Update KB971033\/KB4480960\/KB4480970 bricks Windows 7 Genuine (0xc004f200)<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/01\/09\/netzwerk-issues-with-updates-kb4480970-and-kb4480960\/\"><br \/>Network issues with updates KB4480970 and KB4480960<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[German]On January 8, 2019, some administrators in enterprise environments observed KMS activation errors on Windows 7 clients. Windows 7 was reported as 'not genuine' (error code 0xC004F200). Now Microsoft has provided some explanation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,22,2],"tags":[1781,1777,1780,17],"class_list":["post-8246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue","category-update","category-windows","tag-0xc004f200","tag-kb971033","tag-kms-activation-error","tag-windows-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}