If you installed Windows 8 RTM Professional, you were prompted for a license key before it would even get started with the installation, but if you installed Windows 8 RTM Enterprise Edition, it didn’t even prompt for a license key during the installation process.
Going to “Windows Activation” in control panel, shows “Error Code 0x8007232B DNS name does not exist.” in the Activation details section:
I couldn’t find a place to enter a license key so they’re probably assuming you have a Key Management Service (KMS) server running on your network since this is “Enterprise” edition. To work around this, open a command prompt as an admin. This is done by right clicking in an empty area on the metro interface screen and then selecting “All apps”:
Right click on “Command Prompt” and then click “Run as administrator”:
Run the following command, replacing the X’s with a valid Multiple Activation Key (MAK):
1 | slmgr /ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx |
You’ll receive a popup stating the product key was successfully installed:
Refresh the Activation page and it will now show activated (with Internet access):
Update 8/18/12 5:30pm CST
If you work in the technology sector and you’re not on Twitter, you should be. After posting this blog and tweeting that it was posted, Jan Egil Ring (@JanEgilRing) replied to my tweet stating that “slui 3” was another option so I decided to test it out:
On Windows 8 Enterprise Edition (RTM), from a “Command Prompt” that was run as an admin, the following command prompts for a license key using a GUI interface:
1 | slui 3 |
µ
The SLUI 3 method doesn’t require “Run as administrator”, this also means that you can use this with Lync desktop sharing.