Virtual Machine Running on Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Host Fails to Activate with Error Code 0xC004F07C

Cause 1: This occurs if the incorrect product key is applied to the virtual machine (VM).

Servers purchased from Dell with Windows Server 2012 installed will ship with a single product key on the attached COA sticker. This is in contrast to servers shipped with earlier versions of Windows Server (2008 and 2008 R2), whose COA stickers contained two keys: a physical key and a virtual key.

The single key on the 2012 COA sticker can be used to activate the host OS and the VMs, as long as the VMs run the same edition of the OS (i.e., Standard or Datacenter) as the host. Supplying an incorrect key to a VM will cause the VM to fail to activate. Details regarding the reason for activation failure can be found by running the slmgr /dlv command from an administrative command prompt.

If the error code ("Notification reason") shown in the output is 0xC004F07C, it is possible that an administrator used a utility to "extract" the product key from the host OS and then attempted to use that key to activate the VM. It is important that the product key be verified by visual inspection of the COA sticker, as extraction tools do not always report the key correctly. Once the correct key has been obtained from the sticker, it can be applied to the VM in one of two ways:

• The Product ID link in Server Manager, if the VM includes a GUI.
• The slmgr /ipk <key> command, followed by slmgr /ato to initiate activation.

 The VM should then activate successfully.