Windows 200 server/ NT server Licensing!

I have a huge problem with Windows 2000 and NT Licensing, here is the break down: I have 5 servers total... 2 Windows NT and 3 Windows 2K

I have a Domain where a 1 Windows NT server is the domain controller, the remaining servers are member servers, I do not have a BDC.

I went to every server and clicked on "start" then "setings" then "control panel" "licensing" and this are the results I get on the servers:

Windows NT server ( Domain Controller ) per server mode = 50

Windows NT server ( Member Server ) per server mode = 70

Windows 2K server ( Member Server ) per server mode = 50

Windows 2K server ( Member Server also used for Terminal Services ) per server mode = 10

Windows 2K server ( Member Server also used for Terminal Services ) per server mode = 5

Up to that point it is fine here is where I get confused.........:

On every server ( all 5 of them ) this time I went to "start" then "programs" then "administrative tools" then "licensing" here I get a different licencing window than the one I mentioned above, it has different tabs , one of those tabs the "products view" tab has 2 columns one of them says "per server purchased" the number there is 280, then in the other column where it says "per server reached" the number is minus ( yes minus ) 1327 ......now my question is where are these numbers coming from?? what do they mean? and why are they different from the "per server" numbers above ?? why do i have a negative number -1327 in the per server reached column??? my organization has only 50 computes by the way......can someone explain to me how this licensign thing worlks please????

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Originally Posted by coolmarine24

....can someone explain to me how this licensign thing worlks please????

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Can't explain why one of my servers shows some 6500 seats purchased... we have only 80 clients. Looking at the history it seems like at every reboot more licenses are being added... well, who cares, we have the paperwork that shows the real number of seats purchased...

yes also in the tab "per servers reached" the numbre keeps increasing everyday, yesterday it was -1248 and today its over -1300 i do not understand this...im jsut trying to make sure we are legal..why is that so hard????

The papers showing the number of seats purchased can confirm your legal status... otherwise you can just record you have purchased 10000 seats and the server is happy...

maybe it is a good idea for me to swtich the mode to "per seat" ?? if so will i have to do this in each server?? or if it do it in one all the others are gonna switch to per" seat" as well??.................is there a article on the microsoft website where it explains what this 2 licensing windows mean on the servers???? i do not understand why i got a negative number in the "per server reached" column

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Originally Posted by CeeBee

Can't explain why one of my servers shows some 6500 seats purchased... we have only 80 clients. Looking at the history it seems like at every reboot more licenses are being added... well, who cares, we have the paperwork that shows the real number of seats purchased...

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I never had a problem in NT4 domain. I had a perfect history, I even rewrote it per this article: How to reset License Manager information , to get things more consice. Never had any trouble...

Then along comes 2003, I get all new CAL's for this new server OS, try to get things going, and just as you said, every reboot, licenses are gone, and I have to re-add them. I talked to a few people, and what they said was, "you actually use the licensing logging service???"

It's still running on the NT domain, like I said, not a problem, on the 2003 domain I just stopped the License Logging service and called it a day. I'm setup in per seat mode, and Have enough CAL's to be legal in the event of an audit. That's enough for me.

However, a small part of me always wanted to find out why I couldn't maintain the information in 2003...

mine are not going, they are adding up at every reboot of the DC... without me doing anything...

this i crazy i cant find anywhere online answers to why this happens or even a explanation on how to read the license manager!!! ......i only have aobut 50 computers and the number in the "per server reached" column is minus 1345!!! i wish i knew how to expalin that or what it means!

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Originally Posted by coolmarine24

this i crazy i cant find anywhere online answers to why this happens or even a explanation on how to read the license manager!!!

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It's for that very reason I turned off the service. I'm usually pretty good at finding help about specific topics, but addressing issues with license logging from MS or anybody just doesn't seem to be around. Turning off the service is not a solution by far, but it takes your headache away...

what does Turning off the licensing service actually do??? how does that help?

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Originally Posted by coolmarine24

what does Turning off the licensing service actually do??? how does that help?

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Although some documentation states that the licensing service is there to enforce the CAL's vs. client access, it doesn't do anything. In essence, you could install as many cals as you want, or none at all, and clients are still going to be granted access. Buy turning off the service, the license logging doesn't occur, so it will eliminate the events that may turn up about being short licenses, and the observance of problems within the license manager.

In short, it's a useless service unless you have a genuine need to log this information; otherwise, if MS wants me to use it, they better design it so it doesn't break on me...or document fixes that will address my problem.

On that note, I personally would suggest that you switch to per seat mode on your servers. Also remember, even as member servers, the 2k servers require all new cal’s , they can’t re-use the NT4 cal’s, so be sure you are up on the quantities purchased…and in a per seat mode, one user is granted one CAL to all servers on the domain, as opposed to one cal for one server at a time…

thanks for your suggestion on switching to per seat mode but that opens a new question...., from what i understand when "per seat" is enabled the license resides on the workstation and not on the server correct???? if this is the case what happens if one of those wokstation crashes or blows up?? ??....is the license on that workstation gone?? or will the server jsut allow a brand new workstation access to the services??how does this work??........thanks for your help......

Per seat mode is used in a domain environment. Per Server you would see usually in a workgroup environment (for lack of better examples). The user is attaching as a client, in per seat mode all member servers or DC's of a domain will respect that user as a single client. Where with the per server, every server that client tries to access will need a CAL for that user. So if the user attaches to 5 servers, 5 cals are necessary.

But you have to realize that these terms are all logical, in that the OS doesn’t physically prevent access even if you reach a limit. My 2003 servers for instance, after rebooting show no CAL’s loaded, so all client access there after was unauthorized, and I would get events logged. Noone was stopped from accessing a thing, it just showed the issues. Once I turned off license logging, the events stopped, and the License manager doesn’t run without the logging service on, so no worries there either.

It boils down to being legitimate. You have to have the CAL’s for each user in NT4, then in 2k, you have the ability to do things as a per user, or per device. The reason there is, let’s say you have a tone of people that share PC’s at different shifts. If you use a Per device licensing, you only need CAL’s for as many as PC’s attach, not users. However, if you have about the same amount, or more PC’s then users, you would want the Per user. Regardless, Per user or per device, they are all Per seat, as Per server is almost completely useless.