Set MAK and activate Office 2010 when deploying a syspreped image

Question

I am deploying Windows 7 using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) on Server 2008 R2. On the image I have Office 2010 already installed. I don't use Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) but Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (WADK) is available.

How do I set the MAK and activate Office without user interaction during WDS deployment of the image?
Are there better ways to install Office 2010 in such an environment?

If you have volume licensing anyway, why do you bother with MAK keys instead of simply using KMS throughout your network? — the-wabbit, Apr 02 '13 at 10:29
Because I have to. I try hard to convince everybody to switch to KMS, but... — Scolytus, Apr 02 '13 at 11:27
@Scolytus That's a political issue. The right technical solution is a KMS server. — ewwhite, Apr 02 '13 at 12:19

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 02 '13 at 12:21

Basically, you can't do this in a sane way. You obviously could pre-enter the MAK key into your Office installation before imaging, but would have to rearm your Office installation too (note that this would not be done by sysprep /generalize) and thus effectively remove activation information and reset the CMID, so activation still would be required after deployment.

If you really can't but use MAKs in your environment, you should look into the Volume Activation Management Toolkit (VAMT) to ease the pain of MAK key management. Other than that it is very advisable to use KMS instead - it will significantly reduce your key management issues.

Set MAK and activate Office 2010 when deploying a syspreped image

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