Office 2010 KMS and Citrix Provisioning Services

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Setting up Microsoft Office 2010 on Citrix XenApp delivered by Citrix Provisioning Services can be very confusing if it’s not done correctly. So in this post we will go through the necessarily requirements step-by-step.

First of all only a KMS license is valid, so forget about trying to get a MAK key working, even though you can see it in the Citrix Provisioning Services Console, this option is for OS only.

Install Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack on a dedicated server e.g. the same as your Microsoft RDS and Citrix License Server. Make sure you get a _VLMCS record created in DNS under _TCP. If you have many _VLMCS records make sure you delete them to make troubleshooting easier.

  1. Set vDisk to Private Mode
  2. Set Microsoft Volume Licensing to None
  3. Start the VM
  4. Run Program Files(x86)\Common Files\Microsoft shared\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform\OSPPREARM.EXE
  5. Shutdown the Target Device
  6. Set to Shared Mode
  7. Set Microsoft Volume Licensing to KMS
  8. Start two or more PVS Target Devices and check that the GUID is unique

An unexpected mapi error occurred :

This happens when you’re switching from Private to Shared image if Microsoft Volume Licensing is set to KMS. The workaround on Citrix Provisioning Services 5.6 is to follow the steps above since we make a copy of the vDisk for every new version.

Guess what, there’s a major bug in Citrix Provisioning Services 6.0. Since we no longer make copies of the vDisk, but rather create new versions which are a fantastic feature. The problem is that as long as the vDisk is in use (like always) we’re not able to change the Microsoft Volume Licensing! So the only way to fix this is to shutdown ALL devices OR copy the vDisk and do it the old way. What a major bummer.

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34 thoughts on “Office 2010 KMS and Citrix Provisioning Services”

  1. Hi there,

    Do you know if there is a hotfix for the KMS issue when using the new versioning update systems that is part of PVS 6.0?

    Cheers
    Stuart

    Reply
    • Hi Stuart, there’s still not any hotfix for this bug, the latest hotfix for PVS was released 12.12.2011. So for now the only solution is to shut down all the target devices OR do a copy of the Production vDisk.

      Reply
  2. Hi Trond,
    Is it possible with kms enabled on a vdisk and windows 7 to utilise maintenance disks for updates and additional patches etc?

    Seems when we stream from a maintenance disk run updates and test with multiple machines we break Windows genuine validation?

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Hi Martyn, thank for your question. I’ve not tried this my self on Windows 7, but this should work if you put the cmd in a script when doing maintance. Still there’s some bugs with PVS 6 (as mention in the article) so I could be that this still makes problems.

      Reply
  3. Hi Trond,

    We are also using PVS 6.1 and versionning. We have a lot of problems with KMS validation. After doing maintenance we promote a new version but Windows is not genuine or activation failed…

    Have you got any news on this problem ? is there a fix ?

    Thanks

    Reply
  4. Many many thanks for this short but great article. Struggled w/ provisioned XenApp Servers containing Office 2012 and finally it was you who made my day.

    Thanks god, there are people like you out there, who share their (Citrix) experience with others – keep up the excellent work!

    Regards,
    Jochen.

    Reply
  5. Thanks a lot for sharing this.
    I’ve upgraded to PVS 6.1 because of the new feature vDisk versions. Now I have a Base image running on 20 production servers and a new vDisk version witch I am not able to promote to Test or Production.
    Have to start all over again withe a copy of my Base image

    Your Information saved me the time for searching for a solution

    Reply
    • Glad to help. Yeah it’s crazy since most people like you upgrade to use vDisk versions to save storage, and the KMS bug won’t let you do it. Haven’t checked PVS 6.2 yet, maybe it’s fixed there, there’s at least some KMS fixes.

      Reply
  6. Hi Trond,
    we have:
    Provisioning Server 5.1
    Windows Server 2003 SP2 32 bit
    XenApp 4.6

    We have to upgrade, on a 4 XenApp Servers farm, from Office 2003 to Office 2010.

    We have installed KMS Host in a Windows 2008 R2 and also the KMS Office 2010 pack.

    I’ll try to ran Office or ospp /act just to 7 servers but the count in the kms host are always 1 and Office 2010 does not activate.

    Do you know any workaround?

    This is all in a production environment and it’s not really simple to upgrade Windows and/or PVS….

    Thank’s a lot,
    Francesco

    Reply
  7. Ok.. it’s right…
    I have launched the rearm prior to close the image.
    I’ve created six servers based to this image and I’ve exceeded the limit of 5 activation.
    I have reopened in private mode the image and activated definitely the office and opened and configured the single programs (especially Excel that do some installation after first launch).
    I have reclosed the image and now the office result Activated!

    Perfect!

    Now is it all right or after 180 days I can have problems with the control of the activation?

    Thank’s a lot,
    Francesco

    Reply
  8. Going back to the original issue on this page concerning the vdisk update feature and being unable to promote a KMS enabled vDisk to Test or Production, I submitted the following forum post on 6 march 2013.
    http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1719466&

    PLease could you all go to the forum and click ‘Me too – I have the same problem’

    Citrix may start to take notice

    Not a single person has replied to my original post

    thanks,

    DG

    Reply
  9. Hi

    regarding that MAPI error, I’ve got rid that message (within a PVS 6.1 infrastructure) as follows: configure the SOAP service to run as domain user that has db owner access on the PVS db.

    Hope this helps…

    Reply
  10. Thanks for the heads up Frank didn’t quite work for we then I found this
    http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132995

    The domain user you use to run SOAP should have db owner rights AND be member of server local administrators group

    Did both restarted soap and stream services and tada! success! ๐Ÿ™‚

    Thanks this bug has been bothering me since 5.6 sp1

    Reply
  11. Hi Trond,

    Is the issue with Office 2010 licensing using KMS fixed with PVS 7.0? I couldn’t find the a specific mention in the fixed issues list for PVS 7.0.

    Cheers
    Stuart

    Reply
  12. Trond
    Thanks for this article. It was one of the resources I found helpful.
    This blog http://ivan.dretvic.com/2011/06/how-to-configure-a-kms-server-in-windows-server-2008-r2/ was helpful on getting the kms server setup in the first place, and you’re was helpful to know exactly how to get it working with PVS. Thanks
    I noticed that each time I launch an office app the first time on the xendesktop I have to register it. It does successfully register. I wondered if this is normal, or if there are some additional steps to make this work properly
    thanks

    Reply
  13. Hi Trond,

    Could you please advise if the process is the same with MCS and Office 2013, as I’ve run into an issue where the grace period keeps coming up. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I must be doing something wrong or missing a step. BTW, it is fine on the master image.

    Thanks in advance

    Jon

    Reply
  14. I’m not trying to switch from KMS to anything. I have PVS 6.1 hotfix 19, am using Versioning for my Streamed with Personal vDisk setup. (since Citrix support warned me to do this since they’ve seen Private mode “break” the PVD vdisk)

    I created a new version of the vDisk, boot my master target VM in maint mode, login, Outlook opens (it’s in Startup) and switches to a “Configuring Office” screen which pops up a appears, and fails with a “exception unknown software exception (0xc0000417) occurred in the app at location _____” message. And indeed when I check Outlook Help it shows not Activated. Before I created this version, it was working 100% no issues in Private Mode.

    Reply

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