Updating KMS to activate Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 hosts

As many others these days, I’m messing around with Windows 8.1 and was looking into upgrading our KMS to support the new OS.

Here’s what I did:

1) Download and install following update on your KMS host: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2885698 and reboot the server.

2) Uninstall current KMS key from an elevated command prompt using: slmgr.vbs /upk

3) Install the new Server 2012 R2 KMS key also from an elevated prompt using: slmgr.vbs /ipk NEWKEYGOESHERE

4) Activate the new key running slmgr.vbs /ato

…and voila: our KMS is ready for Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 🙂

Failed to resume task sequence (0x800700EA)

I just upgraded my SCCM 2012 environment to the latest R2-release and while everything seemed to be without obstacles, I ran into this error:

<![LOG[Failed to resume task sequence (0x800700EA).]LOG]!><time=”08:41:37.801+420″ date=”09-19-2013″ component=”TSMBootstrap” context=”” type=”3″ thread=”3256″ file=”tsmbootstrap.cpp:426″>EA)

My OSD Task Sequence got to install the OS and the SCCM client, and then just booted directly into the OS skipping the rest. No error was displayed, so I checked the SMSTS.log and saw the above error.

I was using boot images created from MDT 2012, which I thought would be OK in this case. But apparently it’s not – boot images created with MDT 2012 is no longer working and when I switched back to the default ones, my Task Sequence completed.

The new boot images comes with the new Windows 8.1 ADK (http://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=39982) and R2 will upgrade them automatically.

The new boot images will look like this:

Bootimage