Windows 10 enterprise in an Azure VM activated by default ?

Anja Dyna 1 Reputation point
2021-06-18T05:40:05.277+00:00

I recently created an Azure VM using Windows 10 Enterprise 21H1 image.

While creating, (since I was planning to buy a Microsoft 365 F3 license seperately to activate this VM)

I confirmed this in licensing section:

106854-image.png

After finishing the deployment, I connected to it via RDP using the local administrator account.

(Didn't added the F3 licence yet with an Azure AD user).

And when I checked the activation settings, it already says that windows is activated.

106868-image.png

Why is this so? I didn't activated the Windows 10 enterprise manually with the M365 licence, but still it shows that it is activated.

Is this something like a trial period provided by microsoft?

Will it disable that activation after some time?

Should i do an Azure AD join of that VM and use M365 F3 license to activate that windows properly?

Azure Virtual Machines
Azure Virtual Machines
An Azure service that is used to provision Windows and Linux virtual machines.
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  1. vipullag-MSFT 24,711 Reputation points
    2021-06-22T08:18:22+00:00

    @Anja Dyna

    Firstly, apologies for the delay in responding here and any inconvenience this issue may have caused.

    I tried researching a bit on this, and I see in this document it states that "In most scenarios, activation of Azure VMs happens automatically".

    107970-win-10-activation.jpg

    I checked with internal team on this, Azure Automatically activates the Windows license if this check box is checked during VM creation and there is certain grace period for audit to happen after which you will get an email asking for the credentials for validation.

    You can see similar discussion here aswell, that might help with some context.

    I was looking for documentation that has this point included. However, I could not see this documented anywhere. So I have shared this feedback to the document team to have this documented in future.

    Ref these documents:

    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/hybrid-use-benefit-licensing
    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/troubleshoot-activation-problems#what-happens-if-windows-activation-period-expires
    https://video2.skills-academy.com/en-us/previous-versions/tn-archive/ff793403(v=technet.10)

    If you are still looking for more details, then support team will be able to help on this.

    Hope this helps.

    Please 'Accept as answer' if the provided information is helpful, so that it can help others in the community looking for help on similar topics.

    1 person found this answer helpful.