Behind the feature “Automatic Virtual Machine Activation” is a function in Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 Datacenter, Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Datacenter and Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Datacenter for Hyper-V, but it works only with the Datacenter Edition activated. With this feature, all supported Windows Server operating systems since Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2 can be automatically activated by the Hyper-V host. But only up to the own version, which means that a Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Hyper-V cannot activate Windows Server 2016. The limitation of this feature to the Datacenter Edition is due to the unlimited Virtual Windows Server Guests covered by the Datacenter License. The advantage is that it is now easier to assign the license to the corresponding datacenter license during a software audit on the AVMA license key.
