Resolving Windows 10 Activation Issues

Overview

Microsoft has identified a known issue where properly licensed Windows 10 Enterprise users may incorrectly see the Windows Activation watermark on their desktop.  If you have properly assigned your desktop users Windows 10 licenses through either the Office 365 admin center portal or the Azure admin portal but your users are seeing the activation watermark when they access their virtual desktops in Expedient Enterprise Workspace (EEW) you may need to apply the registry key and/or group policy change outlined in this document.  For more information please see the Microsoft article regarding this issue.

Workaround

If you have existing persistent desktop assignments, apply the following registry key and group policy change to the persistent desktop machines.  If you are using non-persistent (floating) desktop assignments or or you are creating a new persistent desktop image, apply the same configuration changes to your base images before deploying your desktop assignment.  Please note that Windows 10 E3/35 licensing is done at the user level so if you are logged in as a local user when configuring your base image you may see the windows activation watermark but your users who are properly licensed will not.

Open regedit and browse to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\

Edit the value for the DoNotConnectToWindowsUpdateInternetLocations key and set the value to 0

If you are controlling Windows Update settings via group policy you may need to also ensure that the Group Policy setting: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update > "Do not connect to any Windows Update Internet locations" is set to "Disabled".

Restart the desktop machine in order for the configuration change to apply.