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I'm writing this because i feel all of the recent documents out there are a tad outdated for the releases that are available. I've read plenty of complaints about people not being able to activate Windows Vista Enterprise and tons of worthless comments. My post is to clear all the confusion and give some help to those who are in need.First ill address all the versions that i feel are relevant to my posting. I've downloaded just about all the releases to test them and see how they work.

Now these are the most popular releases that everyone is wondering about. Ill do my best to explain what works and what doesn't. The 2 Windows Vista releases by Winbeta and Echos are both Working. However they both take extremely long times to load. I didn't think that the Winbeta copy was working properly because of the length it took to extract the DVD. *Note: That it took me about 7-10 mins of leaving the computer idle for the DVD to fully extract and Start the install. It almost appeared as if the DVD stalls but its just extracting. Now the bigger question is after you completed downloading either release which one do you want to install. Your choices are either Enterprise or Business. BOTH CAN BE ACTIVATED. Regardless of what people have posted you can NOT activate the ULTIMATE copy on the Winbeta DVD or any other ULTIMATE copy. You can only activate Enterprise or Business. I chose Vista Enterprise. Let me set everyone straight by saying when installing these copies:

Microsoft.Windows.Vista.RTM.32Bit.and.64Bit.AIO.DVD.READ.NFO-WinBeta
Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Enterprise.32BIT.VLM.DVD-EcHoS
Microsoft.Windows.Vista.Local.Activation.Server-MelindaGates (41 connected PCs)
Local.KMS.Activation.Server.VMware.Image-Jacked Shows (25 Connected PCs)

Vista Business Requires a CD Key which is posted everywhere on the Internet.

However:

Vista Enterprise Does NOT require a CD Key when installing.

So after you have completely installed Either Copy you would now like to activate it. This is where things get tricky. Since the release of the Local KMS servers a lot of time has passed and people don't quite understand why their copy doesn't for them. I'll state this again, both copy's do work but require you to understand a few things. The way the KMS servers are working are based on a date. The date set says that on that specific day there are enough PCs connected to the KMS server to activate other windows Vista copies, hence the idea they are spoofed into thinking there are 25+ computers connected to it. KMS requires that at least 25 PCs are connected to it before it will activate any copy of windows Vista. The MelindaGates copy will show when properly running 41 connected PCs. The Jacked copy shows the minimum amount of 25 PCs connected. What does all this mean? Well it means we have to make sure we do a little bit of hacking. Ill get to that in a moment. Lets move on to actually Activating your copy of Windows Vista Business or Enterprise.

Step 1. Assuming you have installed Windows Vista Enterprise Edition or Business Edition and Use the CD key Move on to step 2.

Step 2. Extract the KMS server and Put the VMWare image somewhere safe in your newly installed vista.

Step 3. Install VMPlayer or VMworkstation I installed VMPlayer.

Step 4. Next Disable Windows firewall on your Locally installed Vista Enterprise or Business.

Step 5. Run the VMWare image, once it is loaded check to see if the firewall is disabled. Both copies i believe come disabled but this is just a precaution.

Step 6. Next Go back to your Vista (the one you installed on your pc) and : Go to Start --> All Programs --> Accessories and Right Click the Command Prompt icon and Run as Administrator.

Step 7. This is the hardest Step i think to accomplish and where everyone gets messed up. So read this part very carefully. We Need to Check the running VMware PC client number to ensure that it has a minimum number of 25 clients connected so that we can activate Windows Vista. How do we do this? Simple Follow these steps 1. Go to your VMware window and open the Command Prompt.
2. Type in "cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -dlv"
If your lucky it will say something like this:

MelindaGates Copy will show something like
Key Management Service is enabled on this machine
Current count: 41 Listening on Port: 1688
DNS publishing enabled
KMS priority: Normal
Or
Jacked Copy will Show something like
Key Management Service is enabled on this machine
Current count: 25
Listening on Port: 1688
DNS publishing enabled
KMS priority: Normal

Like ive stated above this is where not every ones results are the same. If you were like me and downloaded the KMS server and just booted the image and checked the "Current Count" You would be shocked to see that it most likely says "0". This is why a lot of people are getting errors when tring to activate. The zero is because of the date the KMS server was created. I noticed that depending on the date that you set your local PC to can influence how many the current count showed up. Well we can fix the zero problem if we trick the KMS server into thinking its a more current date then when it was created. Remember me talking about the date the KMS servers were created well this plays a big part on how it works. Some people have posted fixes but i think alot of us didn't understand them.
The fix said to add these lines to your VMX files.

tools.synchronize.continue= "FALSE"
tools.synchronize.restore= "FALSE"
tools.synchronize.resume.disk= "FALSE"
tools.synchronize.shrink= "FALSE"
rtc.startTime=some number

While all the above settings are good to have the only one really needed is the rtc.startTime=some number. *NOTE the "some number" is the tricky part to making this work. The others just make sure that it doesn't synch with your PC time. I hope everything makes sense, as ill do my best to explain whats going on. First i only included the rtc.startTime= some number to both of my images. The key parameter here is rtc.startTime. That parameters sets the virtual CMOS TOD (time of day). The number you see in this example sets the CMOS TOD to November 5, 2005. The number 1131148800 is an amount of seconds since January 1, 1970. When you start up the virtual machine, the clock is set to the time specified. Each time you restart the machine, the time will be set to the time specified. So we just have to find out what time to set the KMS servers so that it thinks its close to the date the KMS server was released. The two numbers I'm providing below seem to be working when i tested both copies. On January 13th 2007.
Edit Windows Vista (experimental).vmx of MelindaGates Copy and just add rtc.startTime=1164286430 to the bottom of the file.
Edit Boot.vmx of the Jacked Copy and just add add rtc.startTime = "1167766695"
After you have added the following lines to your copy reboot the KMS image and check to see if the added rtc.startTime date has worked for you. Remember this is by running the Command Prompt and the following command: cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -dlv

Step 8. Now that the KMS server is showing the appropriate number of PC's connected to it we are going to assign our local pc to our KMS server. The way to do this is by running the command:
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -skms vm_vista_ip
You can also use
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -skms nameofpc
A working example would look like this:
C:\Windows\system32>cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -skms 192.168.0.102
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Key Management Service machine name set to 192.168.0.102 successfully.

Step 9. Now all we have to do is activate our pc. We have already told the pc where to find the KMS server and all that is left is to activate it. to do this just run the following command.
cscript c:\windows\\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato

A working example would look like this:
C:\Windows\system32>cscript C:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato (Activation Command)
Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.7 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Activating Windows(TM) Vista, Enterprise edition (cfd8ff08-c0d7-452b-9f60-ef5c7c32094) ...
Product activated successfully.
*Note This article may be copied Freely but is for educational use only. Please if your going to use my material include the rightful owner. -Generalnewbie

For those that want to experiment with the RTC.StartTime and want to find out how many seconds to put down i recommend this site http://www.paulsadowski.org/BirthDay.asp

As of writing this a nice person on the forums posted a working site to activate your Windows Vista copy The site is pkms.xicp.cn
All you need to do is
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -skms pkms.xicp.cn