Error No License Keys Installed

Mar 18, 2020 Without a doubt, a key finder program—a special kind of software tool — is the best way to go if you've lost a serial key for one of your software programs, so long as it's still installed or recently was. Product key-finder programs search your computer for the serial keys stored in the Windows Registry or elsewhere on your computer.

Prior to version 2017 of our Developer Tool products there were two methods to activate the software:

  1. Verify the license key and pay attention to confusing characters like '0' versus 'O'. This could also indicate that you are trying to install a 32-bit license on a 64-bit server engine, or vice versa. Verify the license key and platform information one more time.
  2. After you’ve installed Windows 10 without a key, it won’t actually be activated. However, an unactivated version of Windows 10 doesn’t have many restrictions. With Windows XP, Microsoft actually used Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) to disable access to your computer. These days, Windows just complains at you in a few minor, cosmetic ways.
  3. Your license key is for a different EDITION of the product than the one that you are attempting to activate e.g. Attempting to activate XMLSpy Professional Edition 2016 with an XMLSpy Enterprise Edition 2016 license key. Your license key will not activate the VERSION of the product and edition that you are attempting to activate e.g.
  4. If this is happening after the license grace period AND you already had a setup a license server, please try the below steps. Login to the server and open Registry by typing regedit.exe in Run or cmd prompt.(please note that this should be opened as Administrator.

Both of these methods activate the software so that the built-in license metering module (included with the software) is used to monitor license usage. Both methods result in the creation of a “[product].lic” file e.g.'xmlspy.lic' saved locally on your machine:

Method 1. Manually enter the license details into the Software Activation dialog (HELP | Software Activation | Enter a New Key Code )

Method 2. Double click on the “Licenses.altova_licenses” file (this file was sent to you via email as an attachment when you requested an evaluation / purchased a license from Altova). After saving the 'Licenses.altova_licenses' file to your hard drive, double clicking on it will open the Altova License Wizard which is used to apply the license to the software on your machine.

Version 2017 and newer of our Developer Tool products introduced an additional method to activate the software. This method does not use the built-in license metering module to monitor license usage. Instead a license is obtained from an Altova License Server in your network.

Method 3. This method activates the software by obtaining an available license from an Altova License Server installed in your network. In this scenario a license '.lic' file is NOT stored on the local machine but is centrally administered via the License Server.

Press the “Use Altova License Server” button in the Software Activation dialog (HELP | Software Activation) and select a License Server from which an available license for the product can be obtained.

This method is necessary for Concurrent and Named User Licenses as these must now be administered via an Altova License Server installed in your network

Version 2020 and newer of our Developer Tool products changes two things with regards to activating the software using the built-in license metering module:

It will no longer be possible to manually enter the license details via the “HELP | Software Activation | Enter a New Key Code” method (Method “1” above).

Save the Licenses.altova_licenses file attached to your license email to your hard drive and then either:

  • Upload the license via the “HELP | Software Activation | Upload License” button
  • Double click on the saved Licenses.altova_licenses file to activate the license via the License Activation Wizard
Keys

KMS isn’t so bad. It is of course on the way out, to be replaced by Active Directory-based Activation in Server 2012, but KMS will stick around until all of our Server 2008 R2 machines are out of production. Given that we still manage some Windows 2003 servers (if we must), I think it’s fair to assume we’ll still be using KMS well into the next decade.

One of our clients has an environment running KMS on Windows Server 2008 R2. In June of last year, they started deploying Windows Server 2012 R2 servers. The KMS server had previously been patched to support Server 2012 and 2012 R2 KMS clients. Because no one complained in June, I had assumed that someone had activated the proper key on the KMS server to support the new version.

In December, he reported that his newest servers weren’t activating properly.

Their two most recently deployed servers were reporting activation errors. I logged into one of the machines that was reporting activation errors and ran the trusty activation command:

… and got this gem back in response:

Error: 0xC004F074
The Software Protection Service reported that the computer could not be activated. No Key Management Service (KMS) could be contacted. Please see the Application Event Log for additional information.

License

The first thing I do, naturally, was just to make sure my KMS server was in fact reachable from this machine. It was. Then, I started to dive into the rabbit-hole that is KMS troubleshooting:

  • Ensure the domain _VLMCS DNS records are correct
  • Ensure the Software Protection Service (sppsvc) is in fact running on the KMS server
  • Ensure that the proper KMS key and channel (VOLUME_KMS_2012-R2 channel) shows up in the KMS server’s licensing (slmgr /dlv all)
  • Double-check that MS KB2885698 is installed to add support for newer operating systems on a Windows 2008 R2 KMS host

At first blush, everything appeared to be fine. So then I refer back to the application event log, hoping against hope that the “additional information” wasn’t some weird circular reference. I found this error in the Windows Application log:

You can actually see the text of the slui.exe errors with a command like this, run on a Windows machine with a GUI (i.e., not Core):

Which pops up a helpful “An error has occurred” window, with an optional details pane that indeed reports the exact text of the error message that we started with.

Keys

So I’ve got a KMS server that looks just fine that my new servers are complaining about.

So what’s the problem?

It turns out that the KMS server was in fact missing the proper key.

Regcure License Keys

The reason I overlooked this problem in step 3 of my troubleshooting above was that the KMS server output for that channel looked valid, but had a few problem indicators that I missed.

So what’s wrong?

  1. The Extended PID and Installation ID fields are empty. These appear to be added when a successful activation for the key is completed.
  2. There’s no “Partial product key” line.
  3. The two (glaringly obvious in retrospect) lines that report “license not in use” and “Status: Unlicensed.”

I glossed over these initially because I assumed that this state was referring to the local machine’s usage of the key, or lack thereof, as it was Server 2008 R2. My assumption was supported by the very high number of “Requests with License Status Licensed”. Finally, Google searches regarding these lines was wholly inconclusive.

Free License Keys

As a troubleshooting step, I asked my client for their 2012 R2 KMS key. I then installed the key and performed activation (slmgr /ipk <your key here>; slmgr /ato <your activation id here>). This of course solved the problem entirely, altered the output to fix all of the issues I described above, and allowed my downstream KMS clients to activate to their heart’s content.

It’s also worth noting that when I attempted to preform the activation of the proper channel before installing the key, slmgr gave back a cryptic, yet accurate error:

Error No License Keys Installed In India

Installed

Error: product not found

Free License Keys Downloads

In retrospect, also true! Might be more useful to say something like “the activation ID you’re attempting to activate doesn’t have a product key associated with it,” but that’s just one man’s opinion.