OEM Software needs to be sold with hardware. Your buying the license. If it's pre-installed by the OEM then you've either got a COA on the side of your server or the Key has been injected into the UEFI. Why wouldn't the software be on the invoice? Of course it would. Why wouldn't you keep the invoice, even just for warranty reference??
I have no experience of MS audits, so I can only add this tid-bit: a genuine OEM version comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. The manufacturer is required to affix it to the hardware. The CoA is the proof of your entitlement to a license (not a purchase receipt or similar). A software obviously can't check to see if you have a physical CoA. In very extreme theory, a software could correlate the hardware details and the manufacturer reported by the PC with a database to see if such a configuration has ever in fact been sold by the OEM in question. Also, if the OEM uses different product keys for different type of systems, a software could detect that too. (We typically only see one key per Windows version per OEM on these forums, but there is nothing preventing there being several) Lastly, there is an exception to the above in Windows 8/8.1, where there is no physical CoA anymore. Instead unique information (OEM: DM) is embedded in the BIOS which is tied to a unique hardware id of the system. This is however not relevant for Windows Server (for now).
tl; dr (Too Long - Didn't read ) The fact you wrong such a long post trying to justify ways of getting around it proves you know what your doing is illegal. No getting around on it on a technicality. OEM Windows is tied to the exact server it came with. It's none transferable and when the server dies the OS license is dead also. Server suppliers have to maintain a list of unique ID (Such as Tags on Dell PC's) which list the OS it was supplied with (if any) No getting around it. Any use outside of this is piracy - no half way house.
Well, maybe you should have read at least the first part, where I said I'm not using any illegal or pirated software. I have fully licensed, retail purchased versions of SB Server and Exchange running, now - and I can't run illegal or pirated software, for various reasons, many of which I assume are shared by most IT folks and a good deal of the forum members in here. My upgrade will be to legal, licensed versions of whatever the next system I use will be. As to why you would assume a series of questions of licensing and validation techniques "proves" anything about the poster - other than they are extremely curious/trying to be thorough - I guess that should be expected if you can't be bothered to actually read something that simply appears too long. Just not a very detail-oriented person, I guess. I know that OEM Windows is tied to the exact server it came with and that true OEM machines have a physical CoA sticker on the hardware. If that were the end of the situation however, and there was no way to use an OEM version of the OS anywhere than on the OEM server with the CoA, there wouldn't even BE a Windows 2012 Server OEM Key thread - or any other discussion of activation techniques - now would there? So, moving on... Keylorgo's post actually addressed one of the questions I had, which was about an ability to tie a specific OEM OS installation to a specific piece of hardware (short of actually physically inspecting the hardware/the CoA, of course). As he pointed out, in theory, a remote software audit could correlate the hardware details the manufacturer reported by the PC with a database to see if that configuration was sold by the OEM in question. I imagine that it is possible to do that deep a level of auditing and correlation of results, but somehow, I doubt they do that, even if they have the capability. My gut tells me that all a remote SAM audit looks for is an apparently valid install of the OS - without going further if it finds that, to see if the hardware etc., matches. But it looks like we may never know. No one seems to know (or want to talk about) the specifics of how deep remote software audits go - and I'm certainly not willing to test it! Again, thanks everyone.
This is all for testing purposes anyway, right? It's just some have been testing for longer periods then others
Exactly. No way to legally use it anywhere else, but there are no technological measures to prevent doing so. The threads on this forum exist to discuss the use of OEM keys out of 1) academic interest and 2) willingness on the part of plenty of people to use the software illegally. My post.
pay for the license. Install the CSVLK (KMS host key) so the machine is acting like KMS host machine. Activate clients against that host machine.