So I'm in the business of selling laptops, and I can't activate 1703 while in audit mode. I never had any of the following problems with 1607. The general process I have, starts with a fresh VM install of 1703, then that install gets generalized and saved as my master image. That image gets deployed to a laptop-type, for drivers and software. Then it's shutdown to audit mode (not generalized again) , that final image gets deployed to that laptop-type, where it gets a functional test and activated. Trying to activate machines using Win 7 keys I get a mix of two errors - 0xC004F055 and 0xC0EA000A. Using machines with Win8+ keys in the bios, I get errors 0xc03f6504 and 8007007B. The crazy part of this, is that booting them into OOBE mode, registering a user, and then activating - absolutely no issues. Having the end-user handle activation is out of the question, I was hoping someone here might have some ideas.
At the oobe screen you can "SHIFT+F10" to get admin cmd prompt & activate from there using slmgr commands. ie slmgr /ipk <product key> slmgr /ato slmgr /dli Once activated just "shutdown -s -f -t 0". When the end user gets it THEY go through OOBE & it's all activated...
I've activated hundreds of Vista, Win7, and Win10 (<=1607) installs in audit mode. However generalize does remove the activation and does an activation rearm. I gave this a shot, and slmgr /ato throws error 0x8007007B still. Finishing the OOBE screen and running slmgr /ato again and Windows activates normally. I also tried setting the following registry keys: Code: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System FilterAdministratorToken:1 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\UIPI\ Default:0x00000001(1) - thinking that it might be some UAC nonsense blocking internet access for the activation process, it had no effect. I guess I'll switch back it 1607 for now, unless anyone else has some ideas?