I'm curious if anyone has successfully transitioned their Windows 11 Enterprise activation from KMS (Key Management Service) to activating it with the M365 licenses that come with a G5 subscription. Most of the info from Microsoft seems to focus on the process for upgrading from Pro to Enterprise when a licensed user logs in, but I'm not sure about moving from KMS. Any insights on this would be appreciated!
1 Answer
Yes, switching to M365 activation is straight-forward! If your device is already joined to Azure AD or Hybrid AD, just have the user log in with their E5 or G5 license. Activation usually happens automatically — you might not even need to mess around with slmgr commands. Just log in and give it a couple of hours. If it doesn't activate, you can check the status using slmgr /dlv to see what's going on.
That sounds great, but I did a slmgr /dlv check and I'm linked to an E5 license, yet I haven't transitioned to subscription activation. Could it be because I'm hybrid-joined and using on-prem AD credentials? My work/school settings show I'm connected to our Entra ID tenant.
Awesome, I found a link to some Microsoft documentation about it! It confirms that if the device had a Pro license activated, it should migrate to subscription activation smoothly. Here’s the link: [Windows subscription activation | Microsoft Learn](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-subscription-activation?pivots=windows-11#existing-enterprise-deployments).