Find windows server license status (2024)

Article
01/06/2019

Question

_{Sunday, January 6, 2019 6:52 AM}

Hi,

We use Windows server 2008 and 2012 and 2016 servers.

Kindly let me know any tool from Microsoft to use to find which all servers are license and which all are not.

We do not have any KMS server and we use MAK license.

All replies (9)

_{Sunday, January 6, 2019 7:40 AM}

You can use slmgr.vbs

Sample Syntax:-

slmgr.vbs /dlv

Thanks, Ashish MCITP, MCT, MCSE

_{Sunday, January 6, 2019 8:12 AM}

There are GUI and CMD ways to know OS license status from Microsoft itself.

1. Open Windows file explorer; paste 'Control Panel\System and Security\System' and form shows your system's basic information, at bottom you could see Windows license status.

2. Open command prompt as administrator and type following command:

SystemInfo
TypeSLMGRand type all commands your query needs.

Best of luck.

_{Sunday, January 6, 2019 4:58 PM}

Actually, there is nothing on Windows Server that tells you whether or not it is licensed. The above explanations may tell you if an instance is activated, but it does not say if it is licensed. That is because licenses are not installed. They are legal documents that are provided to auditors and lawyers to prove that you have purchased enough license copies to run the number of active instances of Windows Server you have. Determining the number of licenses you have is a process of going to the location where you have stored your licenses and adding up for the various versions.

tim

_{Monday, January 7, 2019 6:28 AM}

Thank you all.

I was actually checking for a tool which can say all the servers in the domain is having the license or not.

Sorry that I was not being specific.

A microsoft tool is better if not any other third party tool.

_{Monday, January 7, 2019 1:21 PM}

"checking for a tool which can say all the servers in the domain is having the license or not."

Licenses are assigned to a physical host. This is a paper transaction. There is nothing 'set' or 'installed' during operating installation or activation that says an instance of the operating system is licensed. You have to implement some sort of system on your own to keep track of licenses. Small organizations will use something as simple as a spreadsheet where they may capture system serial number and the associated license document. There are third party tools that may be purchased for larger organizations, but it still requires some sort of manual entry of information.

If you do not have anything in place, you will have to perform a manual audit. You will need to pull together all your current licensing documents and then perform a physical audit of your physical systems. You can easily find out what version of the OS is running on the different physical machines. Then you need to match your paper licenses with your physical count.

tim

_{Tuesday, January 8, 2019 9:16 AM}

Run 'Winver.exe'.

_{Wednesday, January 9, 2019 3:16 AM}

hi,

From below powershell command we can query the remote computer about all SoftwareLicensingProduct information ,we need to refer below website to edit powershell command to filter the information which you want to query.

Get-WmiObject SoftwareLicensingProduct -ComputerName $computername

Testing License State and Setting the License Key
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/heyscriptingguy/2013/04/06/testing-license-state-and-setting-the-license-key/

there other documents for your reference
Get Windows Product License Information (including product key) GUI Tool
https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Get-Windows-Product-6b5e6f6e

What is the best way to check Windows License Status using WMI query
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29276171/what-is-the-best-way-to-check-windows-license-status-using-wmi-query

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_{Wednesday, January 9, 2019 2:33 PM}

Note that the above options will all provide information on how the product is or is not activated. A license is not installed on a system. You can find out all sorts of information about the version of the operating system running and whether or not it has been activated and what sort of activation is in use on that particular machine. But it still comes down to the fact that the information gathered from the above means must be manually matched with the paper licenses that have been purchased. For example, assume a company has signed a volume license agreement for 20 physical hosts running Windows Server Standard. The volume activation key is not limited to activating 20 physical hosts. They could activate 30 hosts on that volume activation key. Nothing in Windows will highlight that. All physical hosts will show as being properly activated with the company's volume activation code, but that does not mean they are properly licensed. When it gets into virtual machines, it gets trickier yet. The Windows Standard Server license allows for up to two instances of Windows Server. Nothing prevents the user from instantiating more than two instances. Nothing prevents the running of more than two Windows Server VMs. The environment needs to inventoried to determine what is running what operating systems and where those operating systems are running. Then there has to be a comparison back to the paper licenses to determine whether or not the company is in compliance with the license agreement they have signed.

The request of the original post was " find which all servers are license and which all are not.". Yes, it is important to determine which systems are activated and how they are activated, but the question was about licensing - not activation (unless the OP clarifies and states that interest really was just about activation).

tim

_{Monday, January 14, 2019 9:26 AM}

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