Special thanks to Drevlan for the heads-up on this.

These special product keys are provided by Microsoft for use in unattended answer files, or for switching your server from a MAK setup to a KMS setup, if you have either of those scenarios going on. More about that can be found here.

These Operating Systems provide functionality in the setup GUI to skip the product keys during setup, and provide it later. However, when you are doing an unattended setup, it will not allow you to skip the product key (whose idea was that?!).

You can use these keys during unattended setup, and then replace them later by clicking a link in Activation GUI, and entering your own keys at that time. Then you can activate against a KMS, or Microsoft, or whatever setup you’re using.

The “Windows Server 2008″ key can be used for SBS 2008 - specifically, in the OS-level answer file – not the one generated by SBSAFG. In conjunction with the SBS answer file, your SBS 2008 installation can be 100% unattended, “from Boot to Welcome“.

These keys are specifically mentioned for use with unattended setup answer files, although the ones above will probably do the job as well.

Tags: answer file, deployment, from boot to welcome, Product Keys, SBS 2008, unattended, vista