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 Windows OS Hub / Windows 10 / Setup Error: Windows Cannot Find Microsoft Software License Terms

November 27, 2018 Windows 10Windows Server 2012 R2Windows Server 2016

Setup Error: Windows Cannot Find Microsoft Software License Terms

When trying to perform a clean install of Windows 10 on a new Hyper-V virtual machine, I faced an issue that Windows installation from an installation image interrupted after selecting an OS with the following error:

Windows Setup

Windows cannot find the Microsoft Software License Terms.  Make sure the installation sources are valid and restart the installation.

The installation was canceled.

Any changes made to your computer won’t be saved.

Windows setup error - Windows cannot find the Microsoft Software License Terms. Make sure the installation sources are valid and restart the installation

After clicking OK, the computer restarted and Windows installation is restarted. The error “Cannot find License Terms” appeared again and again.

As it turned out, the error may be caused by two different reasons (I have seen both of them):

  • If Windows 10 / Windows Server 2016 (or older OS versions) are installed inside a virtual machine (on Hyper-V on VMWare hypervisor), make sure that you have allocated enough RAM for the VM. In my case only 512 MB of memory was allocated for this VM on the Hyper-V server, and the option to use Dynamic memory (Enable Dynamic memory) was enabled for it with possible of Memory overcommitment. Increase the size of the allocated VM memory to at least 1024 MB and restart the installation process.
    hyper-v VM set at least 1 gb of RAM
    Note. You can use the following trick as a workaround. Prior to starting Windows installation, press Shift+F10 and run the command in the command prompt that will create a pagefile: wpeutil createpagefile /path=C:\pf.sys . Then switch to the installation window and start Windows installation. The installation should continue without any errors even if the memory size is small.
  • If the error occurs when installing Windows directly on a hardware (a computer or a laptop) instead of a virtual machine, make sure that your device has a sufficient amount of RAM. If there is enough memory, it is likely that the problem is with your Windows installation image (distribution). It may be damaged and you should better try using another disk or ISO image. Or the product edition in ei.cfg may not comply with the product key from pid.txt file. In this case, you can create a text file with the name ei.cfg in the \sources\ directory on the installation disk with the following contents:
    [Channel]
    OEM

    ei.cfg [Channel] OEM

If there is ei.cfg in this directory, change the Channel value from Retail to OEM (as it seems that you are trying to install an Enterprise edition from a retail distribution). You must manually edit the ISO file of the Windows installation image using any ISO editor (WinISO), add the specified file and overwrite the installation DVD / USB stick.

Or you can specify the Windows installation key as follows: setup.exe /pkey XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

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2 comments

Me May 1, 2020 - 2:41 am

Thank you. Issue #1 was mine, only 512MB.

Reply
Widget January 14, 2021 - 6:46 pm

I had it set to 2GB RAM but with the autoscaling RAM starting at 512MB. Turned off the autoscaling RAM and it worked fine. Thanks.

Reply

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