I'm curious about the exact technical requirements that must be in place for a machine to act as a KMS and update server for both client and server versions of windows? Information is patchy, technical information appreciated! As W7 Pro can act as KMS to W8/S2012, and can normally be either SLP or KMS validated, could a W7 machine self validate using non-KMS while also acting as a host key KMS server for W8/S2012, or is it compelled to use the same host key for its own validation? What's checked when a W7/W8/S2012 based KMS self-validates online? Since KMS servers like any other have to revalidate every 180 days, is it correct that current generation KMS are only temporary valid, and will start failing to validate non-genuine installs around early 2013 (assuming they don't get a revalidation refresh)? Can KMS VM also act as a Windows Update server, provided it doesn't update itself, or is this better done by a 2nd machine? Last a lot of current KMS (e.g. KMSfull/KMSmicro/Blanca) are built as server core and stripped down. I tried playing with one from curiosity, to see if I could reinstate full GUI but the needed functions like sxs, dism, powershell, sfc etc were stripped out or failed. How would one add back enough to let it rebuild the GUI functionality? Alternatively, if reinstalling from fresh, which is the best guide on the data and HW settings to be matched, so it works?
That was fast! Thank you! Going to think about those for a bit and leaving thread open so anyone else who wants to chime in, can. That's a long thread with lots of recipes in it. Almost needs a summary of its own I'm still not 100% clear on the data and HW settings to be matched. Sorry if I missed a specific post on it, it's a long thread. Different posts suggest e.g. OS edition, OS DVD version, memory size, HD sig, BIOS ID or equivalent, token files (including in WOW64 if needed)..... does anyone actually know for sure what matters?