Change a Windows product key remotely with PowerShell

Question

I'm trying to install/activate a MAK key on remote servers. All of them have RemotePS enabled and firewall exception rules in place.

$Results = Invoke-Command -ComputerName Server1 {
    $Props = @{ComputerName = $env:ComputerName}
    slmgr.vbs /ipk "12345-12345-12345-12345-12345"
    $LicStatus = slmgr.vbs /dlv
    $Props.Add('LicenseStatus',$LicStatus)
    New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property $Props
    }

$Results | Select-Object ComputerName,LicenseStatus

The above does install the MAK key but I don't get any confirmation of this process which is why I've tried adding in the license check option (/dlv) but get nothing returned in the LicenseStatus field. I'm assuming this is because it returns a multi-value maybe!?

Ultimately I'm just trying to get confirmation that the key was installed. There are articles out there about performing this using RemotePS but they all say a notification message is returned for each computer which isn't the case in my experience: https://4sysops.com/archives/change-a-product-key-remotely-with-powershell/

Any ideas how I can check this?

Answer 1

I would call the slmgr.vbs script using Cscript.exe in order to get the results as string array. Otherwise the system will default to using Wscript.exe which is designed to output everything in a messagebox.

Unfortunately, all output of slmgr is localized, so using a regex or something on the LicenseStatus is a no go (on a Dutch NL machine it reads 'Licentiestatus')

What you can do is using switch /dli, because that returns a string array where the last (not empty) value has the status.

Try

$Results = Invoke-Command -ComputerName Server1 {
    # install MAK key
    $null = cscript.exe "$env:SystemRoot\System32\slmgr.vbs" /ipk "12345-12345-12345-12345-12345"

    # test LicenseStatus
    $LicStatus = (((cscript.exe "$env:SystemRoot\System32\slmgr.vbs" /dli) | 
                    Where-Object { $_ -match '\S' })[-1] -split ':', 2)[1].Trim()
    # return an object
    [PsCustomObject]@{
        ComputerName  = $env:COMPUTERNAME
        LicenseStatus = $LicStatus
    }
}

$Results