In the first post dedicated to digital licenses, I will introduce the topic from the organizational side, focusing on the differences and some similarities. The current organizational structure of license deliveries looks like this:

The scheme is known and clear: ordering licenses, reporting, deliveries to customers, activation, etc. All this works and has been known for many years.
Since 2015, OEMs began to switch to electronic licenses and from 2016 to traditional licenses in the form of stickers with the product key were eventually discontinued with OEMs. In great simplification, the installation and reporting of electronic licenses looks like this:

MAR orders licenses and pays royalties. Keys are delivered by assigning them in the DOC (Digital Operations Center) platform to individual TPR partners. TPR companies, using the MDOS Smart Client application, download product keys (the keys are available within a few minutes of their allocation), which they install on target computers by running the MAR Xpress tool (or their own scripts using the OA3.0 tool and slmgr). The keys at this stage are inactive, i.e. they cannot be used to activate the system. The last stage of installing the digital license is generating the installation report (CBR – Computer Build Report), which includes hardware identifier (Hardware Hash). At this stage, a specific license is tied to a specific device – activation attempt on another device would fail. If the computer is to be modified, these operations should be performed before generating the installation report; a subsequent significant modification may result in a significant change of the hardware ID, which will cause activation failure. At this stage, the GML or GMRL label (for used computers) is also applied:

Within a few hours (1..4) of sending the CBR reports to Microsoft, the keys are ready for activation. Each TPR independently sends CBR reports via the MDOS Smart Client application. No other reports are required. The system is automatically activated the first time you connect to the Internet, no user action is required.

The implementation of electronic licenses provides additional benefits, such as
– access to purchased licenses within a few minutes of transfer confirmation,
– encrypted communication ensuring the security of the transferred keys,
– the possibility of returning licenses for damaged devices ( there is a limit of 12 months from the key generation),
– possibility of licenses return for devices returned by customers,
– no possibility of tampering with by end users – even reading the key from the system is completely useless because it is associated with the equipment ,
– keys cannot be sold separately – keys are inactive and without sending a CBR report, activation will fail.
– no problems with damaged COAs.

From the technical side of a single computer, the process looks like this:

As your supplier, we are prepared to implement and conduct the necessary training. In the following articles, I will present the requirements for the implementation of digital licenses (OA 3.0 – OEM Activation 3.0), both from the formal and technical side.