error 0xC004F074 activating Windows 8.1

[Crewer]

I have a legit version of Windows 8 running in my pc from quite few months. Recently I upgraded it to Windows 8.1 and everything was alright. But from yesterday I have started getting an error code 0xC004F074 while activating Windows and am also receiving an error message that states "The software licensing service reported that product could not be activated. No key management service (KMS) could be contacted. Please see application event log for more details." I have checked many solutions to this problem but nothing seems to be sorting out the issue. So can anyone tell me how do I solve this problem?

[Calvin K]

If you are running Windows Server 2003 as your KMS host you need this update:
An update is available that installs Key Management Service (KMS) 1.2 for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (S968915) and for later versions of Windows Server 2003

If you are running Windows Server 2008 as your KMS host you need this update:
An update is available for Windows Vista and for Windows Server 2008 to extend KMS activation support for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2

More information is given here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/974998/en-us

[SalVatore]

I was also facing this same issue on my laptop but after some digging up I was finally able to solve this issue. I simply reinstalled the original copy of Windows 8 on my laptop freshly using the one recovery key that was provided on my laptop and then reinstalled Windows 8.1 from the Store and installed some further update after that. It is just a temporary solution that I am providing, other than that you can try to get a new product key from Microsoft to get it working.

[Enriquee]

You can follow my method to solve this issue. First of all open Command Prompt with administrator rights and then type slmgr.vbs –ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx (where x represents your 25 digit product key) and then press Enter key. After that type slmgr.vbs -ato (to change the product key) and then press Enter. You can also try another method for activation. First click on Start > Run and type Slui 3 or Slui 4 for activating via phone. After that type the product key and then click Activate.