Overview:

The KMS Host installation and activation process for Microsoft Office 2013 is similar to the one for Microsoft Office 2010.

Prerequisites:

Installation of the update that adds support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 to Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 KMS hosts is required for a successful installation of the KMS Host.  The update can be downloaded from the link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2757817.

Installation:

STEP 1: If you have not downloaded and installed the update to add support for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 to Windows 2008 R2 KMS host, please do so by accessing the link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2757817 and downloading and installing the appropriate update.

STEP 2: Download the Microsoft Office 2013 Volume License Pack from the Microsoft Download Center (MSDL) site

STEP 3: Double-click the downloaded EXE to run it:

STEP 4: Click Yes on the "Would you like to enter a Microsoft Office 2013 KMS host product key ..." prompt and enter the KMS Host Key:

STEP 5: Key installed and activated:

ISSUE:

When attempting to activate Microsoft Office running on Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 clients using KMS activation, the activation fails with an error code 0xC004F074.

Running ospp.vbs /dstatus shows the following output:

LICENSE NAME: Office 15, OfficeProPlusVL_KMS_Client edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 15,VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
LICENSE STATUS: ---OOB_GRACE---
ERROR CODE: 0x4004F00C
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the application is running within the valid grace period.
REMAINING GRACE: 29 days (43178 minute(s) before expiring)
Last 5 characters of installed product key: GVGXT

Running ospp.vbs /act shows the following output:

LICENSE NAME: Office 15, OfficeProPlusVL_KMS_Client edition
LICENSE DESCRIPTION: Office 15, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel
Last 5 characters of installed product key: GVGXT
ERROR CODE: 0xC004F074
ERROR DESCRIPTION: The Software Licensing Service reported that the product could not be activated. No Key Management Service (KMS) could be contacted. Please see the Application Event Log for additional information.

The application event log will show an event ID 12288 containing an error 0x8007000D.  You can also run the following command-line from an administrative command-prompt to determine the issue:
x86:
cscript "c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\ospp.vbs" /dhistorykms

x64
cscript "c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\ospp.vbs" /dhistorykms

MORE INFORMATION:

This issue occurs due to a change made to the activation engine of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 that prevents KMS host running on down-level operating systems from activating these clients.  Microsoft has published a hotfix to address this issue.  This hotfix has to be applied to all down-level operating systems that are running KMS Host.  No update to hosts running on Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012 R2 is needed.

RESOLUTION:

Download and install the appropriate hotfix from the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2885698

After installing Office 2010 Service Pack 2, you may receive the following error when attempting to Internet activate Office 2010:

This activation error is currently being investigated.  To activate Office 2010, please use one of the following workarounds:

1. Activate Office 2010 by using OSPP.VBS.

a. Open an administrative command-prompt
b. Run one of the following command-lines based on your Operating System:

x86
cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\ospp.vbs" /act
x64
cscript "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\ospp.vbs" /act

2. Open any Office 2010 program using Run as Administrator

a. Go to Start | All Programs | Microsoft Office
b. Hold down the 'Shift' key and right-click any Office 2010 Program (ex. Microsoft Word 2010) and select Run as administrator
c. Follow the prompts to internet activate

3. Change the UserOperations key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform to have a value of 1.  Can automate this by running the following from an elevated command prompt:

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\software\microsoft\officesoftwareprotectionplatform /v USEROPERATIONS /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

After running this command, open any Office 2010 program and follow the prompts to internet activate.

Note - Setting UserOperations to a value of 1 permits administrator-privileged license operations including Internet or telephone activation by standard users.

4. If using a volume license version of Office 2010, use KMS activation instead of MAK activation.  For further information on KMS activation in Office 2010, please refer to the following Microsoft articles:

Plan KMS activation of Office 2010
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff603508(v=office.14).aspx

Deploy volume activation of Office 2010
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee624357(v=office.14).aspx

When Office products are downloaded from the Volume License Service Center they come down as .ISO files. .ISO is not a file format that Windows can open natively.

An ISO file is an image of a CD/DVD. Typically you would be able to use a burning program like Nero, or ImgBurn, to then burn that ISO file directly to a disk.

How do I use .ISO files?

Once you have downloaded an .ISO file, there are several possible options you can use to install the software:

1. Use .ISO image file software to download and save the .ISO image file to a CD-R or a DVD-R.
   If you are planning to install an Operating System on a PC or install software across multiple machines, this is one of your best options. A CD/DVD gives you the flexibility to make clean installs and to be used as a “boot CD.”
   If you are using a PC with Windows 7, you don’t need any additional software to burn a CD-R or DVD-R. Simply double click on the .ISO file you downloaded, and then follow the steps in the Image Burner Wizard.
   If you are using any other Operating System, you may need additional software. If your computer is equipped with a CD/DVD burner, this software is probably already loaded on your PC. Most CD-R/DVD-R writing software enables disk creation from an image file. Select a menu item such as Copy Image to CD or Burn Image to access this feature. For detailed instructions, see the software’s Help documentation.
2. Virtually mount and access ISO files as a virtual device.
   If you don’t have a CD/DVD burner installed on your machine or you don’t have media available to you (a blank CD-R/DVD-R), you can “mount” the ISO file as a virtual drive. With this method, your machine will believe that the file is a real disk drive, and you will be able to read files from this “virtual disk.” This approach is advisable only for installation of applications (such as Office) or minor system upgrades. You will not be able to install an Operating System using this approach, because the virtual drive would disappear at some point during the installation.
   There are several software options for the virtual drive approach. Though they have not been tested and are not supported by the VLSC team, customers report that Daemon Tools and Pismo File Mount offer such capability as well as Microsoft Virtual CD Control Tool.
3. Extract the .ISO files to your hard drive.
   Contents of .ISO image files can be accessed directly using third-party tools that allow file extraction from the file to a temporary folder on your hard drive (similar to .zip files). As with the virtual drive, this approach is advisable to install application software or system upgrades. An example of this approach is the creation of an installation thumb drive to install software on netbooks or other devices with no optical drive.
   The following tools offer .ISO file support:
   • IsoBuster
   • CDmage
   • Daemon Tools
   • Winrar
   
   Note: While other products may work to manipulate .ISO files, they have not been tested and are not recommended by Microsoft.

The purpose of this blog will be to demonstrate the usage of my favorite third party freeware program that can be used to “mount” the ISO file and allow the extraction of the contents. 

As you can see there are many programs that we could use to extract the contents from ISO files, but there are few reasons that I prefer Pismo File mount.

- Free
- Easy to use
- Non invasive

Let me demonstrate how I use Pismo File Mount to extract the contents from an Office ProPlus 2010 ISO I downloaded from the VLSC.

1. Downloaded and ran the installer for Pismo File Mount Audit Package.
2. After the installation, I right click on the ISO file that I had downloaded and choose “Mount Image”

3. After mounting the image you will notice that the icon for the ISO has changed and how looks like this:

We can now double click on this and it will open like so:

Now we will want to select all and copy the contents to another local folder on the machine.

4. After I have copied the contents to another folder on the machine, I will “unmount” the ISO so that it is no longer in use by Pismo File Mount.

Now that I have the contents extracted I can delete the ISO and copy the contents to a network share, burn to a disc, or copy to a thumbdrive for installation on other machines. At this point I uninstalled Pismo File Mount.

Note: While this blog article is written with ISO files in mind, it also pertains to .IMG files.

Overview

Microsoft Office 2013 shows the following screens when an application is launched for the first time:

More Information

Both the Office Customization Tool (OCT) and Group Policy Management Editor provide a way to disable these First Run screens

Office Customization Tool (OCT)

Note: The OCT can only be used with Windows Installer based source files for Microsoft Office 2013.

STEP ONE: Using the OCT (setup.exe /admin), go to the Features section and select Modify user settings | Microsoft Office 2013 | First Run | Disable First Run Movie

STEP TWO: Set the Disable First Run Movie to Enabled

STEP THREE:Select the Disable First Run on application boot and set it to Enabled as well

STEP FOUR: Save the resulting MSP file and use it as part of the Microsoft Office 2013 deployment

Group Policy Management Editor

STEP ONE: If you have not already, download the Office 2013 Administrative Template files. These can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35554

STEP TWO: Copy the ADMX files to %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions and the ADML files to the language specific folder (such as en-us) under %systemroot%\PolicyDefinitions.

STEP THREE: Using the Group Policy Management Editor go to User Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates: Policy definitions | Microsoft Office 2013 | First Run

STEP FOUR: Set the Disable First Run Movie to Enabled and the Disable Office First Run on application boot to Enabled

Note: If you would like to manage the Opt-in or First things first prompt, please see my other blog post.