App Layering MCS KMS Activation issues

[Angus Sutherland1709163283]

HI All,

Trying to understand whats happening here. I have a new deployment of an app layering image using 2309 using an MCS catalog. Getting KMS Activation issues when deploying the image to the catalog. Sometimes servers will activate and sometimes they dont. It appears to be running the kmssetup.cmd at startup. It also appears to be calling some the right files for activation however it doesn't appear to be running runipkato file and installing the KMS key and activating the server.

 

In the OS layer i have followed the following articles specifically the running of thr SetKMS.hta.

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX224900/office-not-activating-in-app-layering-incl-mcs-image-prep-os-rearm-failed

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX224212/windows-office-is-not-activating-on-app-layering-images-runipkato-file-not-present

 

Depending on the deployment using the same image template I'm deploying to 2 different datacentres. 1 Deployment will work and servers will activate in the first datacentre and the other Datacentre will not and servers in the catalog wont activate. This is using the same image template from app layering.

 

Any ideas?

Cheers

 

[Rob Zylowski]

If you check the master image and look in the c:\windows\setup\kmsdir folder is there a file called runato_done?  If so delete it before shutting down.  That is a flag file that says dont run activation its already been run.

The SetKMSVersion.hta uses the windows caption to find the version of the OS you are using then it creates the  runato.cmd wiht the correct activation script for that version.  It does need to be run as administrator to wrote to the kmsdir folder.  If its not on you master image then check your os layer for it the runipkato.cmd and make sure its calling the correct script version.

 

As for image prep failing that often has to do wiht the time on the image prep machine being way off.  But the way we do activation using scripting in App Layering you can disabled image prep if you want to in MCS.  If you do find that its a time issue that is normally fixed by using a hypervisor template when you publish your image based on a virtual machine that has all the right settings and that has been starting and running the correct time zone in windows so that that setting gets stored in the virtual bios.

[Angus Sutherland1709163283]

Thanks the issue ended up being that the name of the Platform layer needed to have the name CITRXAL due to the way the kmsetup script works.