It’s a walk in the park, just enable the currently functioning KMS server to activate Office 2013 products as well. The process with Office 2010 was very straight forward, but that’s not the case with the combination of Windows Server 2012 Volume Activation Services and Office 2013. Here’s how to do it successfully.

The Issue

Information and guidance according to Microsoft states that the installation process is similar to the one with Office 2010. The installation of Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack prompts for the Office 2010 KMS Host Key and activates it. When successful, results should be like this:

However, when expecting the same during the installation of Office 2013 Volume License Pack, it doesn’t prompt for the KMS Host Key. Instead, the Volume Activation Services Configuration Wizard fires as if configuring KMS Host for the very first time. If you proceed and install the Office 2013 KMS Host Key, the wizard will remove any previous KMS keys and activation of those products will stop functioning.

How to Do It Properly?

First, do not run the wizard, just cancel it out and let the Volume Activation Services run as it was! Instead, install and activate the Office 2013 KMS Host Key manually using the good old slmgr.vbs script, here’s how. You can do this safely as this will not uninstall previous keys.

Install Office 2013 KMS Host Key

cscript slmgr.vbs /ipk <YOUR_OFFICE_2013_KMS_HOST_KEY>

Activate it (you can find the proper Product Activation ID below)

cscript slmgr.vbs /ato <PRODUCT_ACTIVATION_ID>

Restart Volume Activation Services on the server

Restart-Service sppsvc

After this, you should be out of the woods and your KMS server should be activating products successfully.

Useful Command Line Magic

Here are some other useful slmgr.vbs switches and whatnots.

To display licensing status of a specific product

cscript slmgr.vbs /dli <PRODUCT_ACTIVATION_ID>

To display licensing status of a specific product (verbose)

cscript slmgr.vbs /dlv <PRODUCT_ACTIVATION_ID>

To display licensing status of all products

cscript slmgr.vbs /dli all

To display licensing status of all products (verbose)

cscript slmgr.vbs /dlv all

To uninstall a product key of a specific product
NOTE! If you run this without specifying a product, it will remove all installed product keys on the KMS Host.

cscript slmgr.vbs /upk <PRODUCT_ACTIVATION_ID>

Product Activation IDs of Office Products

Here are the Product Activation IDs of Office 2010 and 2013, which I’ve found rather hard to find.

Product	Product Activation ID
Office 2010	BFE7A195-4F8F-4F0B-A622-CF13C7D16864
Office 2013	2E28138A-847F-42BC-9752-61B03FFF33CD

Links

Information and Troubleshooting
Office 2010 KMS Client Keys and Troubleshooting Information
Office 2013 KMS Client Keys and Troubleshooting Information

Download the KMS Host License Packs
Microsoft Office 2010 KMS Host License Pack
Microsoft Office 2013 Volume License Pack

Previous Posts
Changing the product key of Windows from MAK to KMS with a PowerShell script

Summary

The issue at hand occurs for at least on Windows Server 2012 Volume Activation Services. I don’t know if that’s the case with Windows Server 2008 or 2008 R2. There’s an obvious bug in the Volume Activation Services, the Microsoft Office 2013 Volume License Pack or both. Microsoft will probably fix this eventually, but in the mean time I hope this helps those in trouble…