Licensing on virtual machines

Mona
2024-05-08

On virtual machines the XP/VS license is always bound to the MAC address of the primary Windows network interface.


In following cases this can lead to problems with XP/VS licensing:

A) If you on e.g. VMWARE try to move or copy a virtual machine and select "create new identifier" a new MAC address is created.

B) Also changing the order of the network interfaces in Windows (if. e.g. another network interface is added - e.g. a VPN connection ...) causes the MAC address of the primary Windows network interface to change.

C) Some virtualization solutions (e.g. HyperV, Xen, etc.) will create a new MAC-address for every new Guest OS.

In all of this cases the XP/VS license becomes invalid (9. Invalid hardware key?)
To avoid this, please make sure that the MAC address of the primary Windows network interface does not change on virtual machines.

In case B) you can fix your problem by recreating the initial order of the Windows network interfaces.

In case C) can be avoided by assigning a static MAC-address.

If you use a virtualization platform (e.g. VMWare, HyperV, Xen, etc.), please assign a static MAC-Address to your Virtual Guest Computers before you install XP/VS Terminal Server.

 

XPVS Server in cloud environments

Invalid hardware key?

On virtual machines the XP/VS license is always bound to the MAC address of the primary Windows network interface.

In following cases this can lead to problems with XP/VS licensing:

A) If you on e.g. VMWARE try to move or copy a virtual machine and select "create new identifier" a new MAC address is created.

B) Also changing the order of the network interfaces in Windows (if. e.g. another network interface is added - e.g. a VPN connection ...) causes the MAC address of the primary Windows network interface to change.

C) Some visualization solutions (e.g. HyperV, Xen, etc.) will create a new MAC-address for every new Guest OS.

In all of this cases the XP/VS license becomes invalid (invalid harwdare key)
To avoid this, please make sure that the MAC address of the primary Windows network interface does not change on virtual machines.

In case B) you can fix your problem by recreating the initial order of the Windows network interfaces.

In case C) can be avoided by assigning a static MAC-address.

If you use a visualization platform (e.g. VMWare, HyperV, Xen, etc.), please assign a static MAC-Address to your Virtual Guest Computers before you install XP/VS Terminal Server.

Tags: create new identifier, HyperV, Invalid hardware key, invalid license, Licensing, Mac, move computer, primary network interface, Virtual Machines, VMWARE, Xen