I looked through several questions posted by others, but no one really answered my question, maybe because of how the questions were phrased.
I too have images to maintain, of Windows 7 Pro x64. We use MAK keys in MDT but the installs still need activated. I know about only being able to run sysprep three times on an existing image before the rearm count runs down to zero and then subsequent images can't be rearmed to provide the 30 day activation grace period. I also know about using the skiprearm=1 setting in unattend.xml to skip the rearming and thus, keep the rearm count at 3.
Is the skiprearm=1 setting even that useful considering this?: If you build an image and sysprep it with skiprearm=1, your rearm count doesn't go down. However, if you deploy that image down the road, it still keeps track of the grace period count down. For example, if I sysprep with skiprearm=1 today, Oct 5th, and then deploy that image more than 30 days later, the grace period is expired right off the bat as soon as the machine tries booting into Windows, where it normally autologs in, but doesn't because the local admin account has been disabled too.
Is there a definitive way to simply update existing images without worrying about rearming and grace periods? Will using a KMS server and key do the trick? I haven't looked into that yet but I would have to set up the KMS server.
Also, someone posted that you can use cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -rearm in the task sequence to rearm an install so that the full 30 days are available to activate. Where in the task sequence does this go?