How to provide a Vista image to departments without storing your MAK in clear text

Como dar una imagen de vista a un departamento sin guardar la MAK en los ficheros.

Be Geek My Friend — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 11:08:34 GMT

http://blogs.technet.com/migreene/archive/2007/02/06/how-to-provide-a-vista-image-to-departments-without-storing-your-mak-in-clear-text.asp

How to create a bootable Vista DVD with your own custom WIM

Off Campus — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:51:02 GMT

and securely embed your MAK! I've had several requests to document this since I posted the how-to on embedding your MAK in a custom WIM for departmental usage. The next logical step is to create your own DVD using this image. So if you haven't read my

re: How to provide a Vista image to departments without storing your MAK in clear text

Wolf — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 10:40:52 GMT

Does the securery embedded MAK key stay "encrypted" when the image is deployed?

I ask this because you have an option in slmgr to "hide" product key in registry...

re: How to provide a Vista image to departments without storing your MAK in clear text

michael.greene — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 21:45:59 GMT

I beleive you are referring to the -cpky option? With the MAK this happens automatically.

re: How to provide a Vista image to departments without storing your MAK in clear text

Tass — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:41:51 GMT

In the case where I create an Image using a KMS system and later find that some pc's are installed at remote sites witout access to the KMS server, is there a way of converting these pc's to MAk by supplying a excutable with the MAK key encrypted? Thanks

re: How to provide a Vista image to departments without storing your MAK in clear text

michael.greene — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:44:19 GMT

The easiest tool to use would be VAMT - the Volume Activation Management Tool. You will find it on download.microsoft.com. It has the ability to remotely discover which key a machine is using and then you can replace keys, remotely activate the machine, etc. It is capable of handling multiple machines in batch. This is assuming you manage the machine of course, so you have access to WMI with an admin account.

An alternative would be to use the -ipk option of slmgr.vbs. In the case of an unmanaged machine, the only option I know of would be to use this within an encrypted script or text file.