When you copy the vm folder's content to a second and add uuid.action = "keep" before you start it then it doesn't ask anymore. The second installation ID of windows 8.1 will be exactly the same when you have edited the second MAC address to the same as well and use the same amount of virtual RAM.
Could it be, that an activated Windows running in a virtual machine never triggers a reactivation ? I got this idea whilst reading an article about: How viruses protect their detection whilst inspecting them within a virtual machine. Not only that some viruses are inactive when they detect typical virtual machine services. Some of them are also inactive when they detect that the "interrupt descriptor table" exist in an unusual high area - typical for a virtual machine (for details search Google for "Joanna Rutkowska Red Pill virtualization"). If so, then the behaviour of Windows in a virtual machine could be different from a real PC and perhaps you only can trigger reactivation on a real PC. But if so I don't know why Microsoft does it.
I've unapproved the post as we don't allow generated keys here and it's pretty obvious that that's what it is. The keys secret was just 457, but a real key would be 16 decimal numbers. This is why I say that I won't add any Windows Server 2012 R2 keys to the loader until a few people confirm the same key is being used on real server hardware. That or if the key was to come from a trusted known leaker.
OEM SLP keys are sharable since everyone uses the same key, paid or otherwise. Windows 8.X and Windows Server 2012 R2 have WAT built in, so while it may say that you're genuine it's reporting the fake key to Microsoft, thus you're not as safe as you think you are. Don't post generated keys at MDL.
I'm late to the Party, correct me if I'm wrong so if I extract the VMware BIOS and then just add the MSDM Table with a key the key that came from a OEM Windows 8 Pro Laptop I should be able to activate Windows 8 without any issues?
Has someone made a vmware bios with the dell 2.3 slic and 2012 r2 standard key that Daz found? If so care to share?