Recently I got an activation issue on one of Virtual Machine on Azure with error code: 0xC004E015. So here are some actions that I’ve performed to resolve this issues.
Note: in my case this issue was happened on a Virtual Machine hosted On Azure, but these procedures in the following should be able to fix the same issues with regular Windows 10 SKU.
Okay, the following screenshot is the VM which has this activation error for your reference.
If you had the same issue and you tried with the Troubleshoot with slmgr /ato command but not working, then probably the Tokens.dat files may corrupted. You can fix this issue with following precedures:
1.Press Winkey + X and click “Windows PowerShell (Admin)” (in this case I’m using PS you could do with cmd with net command)
2.Then you type “Get-Service” to check the Software Protection services
3.Type “Stop-Service sppsvc” and re-type “Get-Service sppsvc” to check the status it should be shows Stopped.
4.Find the Token.dat file in C:\Windows\System32\spp\store\2.0 directory
5.Rename the Token.dat file to re-build a new Token.dat file.
6.After you done above then we have to restart the sppsvc services with “Start-Service sppsvc” and check the status with “Get-Service sppsvc”
7.Using “cd” command go to C:\Windows\System32 then run “slmgr -rilc” to re-installing license files.
8.Once all completed then restart the machine to apply.
After you completed the restart then you and check that VM is being properly activated.
One thing here to know that if you see 0xC004002 error you cannot just fixed by slmgr /ato if you run then you may got similar error like below:
Hey man!
After +6 hours of debugging this,
your solution saved me!
Thank you!
My journey was like this:
– My azure vm was running some services that were performing badlly.
– took a while to realize that the wm was running on 2GB of ram only and was suffocated.
– took even longer, many restarts, reaply, restore to realize that windows server was no longer activated and this cause the RAM limitation.
– perfromed all the checks that the azure trouble shooter asked, to check the conectivity to the KMS and retry activating using a PS scrip.
– the activation script returned an error 0xC004E015 and so I found your article!
Great work!
How did you know that this cache file was the problem?
Thanks for instructions, only your solution worked for me!!!
I followed your steps on a virtualized Windows Server 2019 and it solved the problem, even without rebooting!
On 08/01/2022:
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.812
Activating Windows(R), ServerStandard edition (de32eafd-aaee-4662-9444-c1befb41bde2) …
Product activated successfully.
After installing 2022-08 Cumulative Update for Windows Server 2019 (1809)for x64-based Systems (KB5016623)
Activation script ran on on 08/31/2022:
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.812
Activating Windows(R), ServerStandard edition (de32eafd-aaee-4662-9444-c1befb41bde2) …
Error: 0xC004E015 On a computer running Microsoft Windows non-core edition, run ‘slui.exe 0x2a 0xC004E015’ to display the error text.
Thanks for the helpful instructions!
Thanks for sharing the steps. I opened a case with MS support but didn’t get this instructions. your solution resolved a long pending issue. thank you very much.
Thank you!
Gracias casi q no puedo activar el Office
Awesome! Right solution and well documented without confusions.
It worked for the same error on windows 2019 std.
Thanks a lot!
This also worked for my Azure VM.
Thank you so much for your time and effort in sharing this. You have really help me!
Thank you very much; the article remains relevant and useful.
Glad to know this!