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Troubleshoot Windows is not Activated

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Troubleshoot Windows is not Activated

Normally, Azure Windows VMs automatically activates via the Azure KMS (Key Management Services). If you see a message that Windows is not activated, these warnings usually clear up with time or a restart of the VM.

Note: You should not see any impact to user functionality when an Azure VM displays this message.

You can attempt to force the activation with an slmgr -ato from a command prompt. If this command results in an error, the details may state that the Azure KMS service is unreachable. This would indicate the KMS service is unavailable and perhaps under maintenance. You should attempt the command again at a later time and it may resolve this issue.

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Comments (2 comments)

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Michael Pabon

It's worth noting that Windows activation requests sent to the Azure KMS server must come from an Azure public IP address. This was an issue for us when using Zscaler and Maidenhead Bridge. We needed to create routes to make sure the KMS traffic bypassed both. This Microsoft Doc provides more information about the issue. Use Azure custom routes to enable KMS activation with forced tunneling - Azure | Microsoft Learn

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Jan Scholte

Michael Pabon Good point a lot of the times this is one of the main reasons activation is failing because of some kind of forced tunneling solution is in place or other reason the Azure KMS server is not accessible, i've also seen with some security software like Threatlocker that did prevent contact with the Azure KMS server.

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