The Microsoft Volume Licensing Service Center was the go-to portal for most IT professionals that purchased Microsoft Volume Licenses such as Windows Server, Microsoft Office, User CALs, RDS, Exchange, SQL, VDI, Sharepoint, Windows Desktop, etc. This was the case for well over a decade but in April 2024 it was officially retired.
Microsoft has been trying to move ALL of their administration bit by bit to Microsoft Office 365 and/or Azure.
Ever since the Volume Licensing Service Center was fully decommissioned by Microsoft, locating legacy licenses from that account has not been clear – a search on the web turns up countless others having the same issue.
and Microsoft sort of explains it in this article:
However, unless you are familiar with the actual process of purchasing and managing volume licenses, Microsoft 365 management, and the whole transition from the VLSC to the Microsoft admin portal, it’s still not very clear.
Microsoft mentions a “Volume Licensing” role that’s needed, and the assumption for most is that this is some special role within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. But it’s not.
There are only TWO ways to be granted this role:
- At the time of purchasing your original volume license, you were asked by the vendor selling you the license what email to use as the administrator for it in the VLSC. This is entirely different from any email you might have used to correspond with the vendor, sign in to the vendor account with and make the purchase, and it is even different (potentially) from the contact email given at the time of purchase (for example, your end user contact details). The vendor would have somehow explicitly requested the email which they were to release the license to, as the admin.
This is the ONLY account that is given the “VL role” to start.
Of note is that you may have purchased multiple licenses at different time periods, using different emails. Therefore some of your licenses may be tied to one email with the VL Role, and some to another.
- The account mentioned above is the only one then that can administer the licenses and grant this role to others, which is now done in the 365 Admin Center. Any licenses that used to be in the vlsc, tied to the account above, were automatically pushed out to this account when the transition happened. So the second way that you can be granted this VL role, is again only if the primary account (mentioned in 1., above) , can sign in to the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal with the associated email, and then explicitly grant admin rights to another user.
There is no other way around this, and so this next part is important:
What happens if you purchased your volume licenses through a reseller or MSP or perhaps a now-ex-employee, and they used an email that you a) do not know, b) do not have access to?
Simply put you won’t be getting those licenses back. The only thing you can try to do is get the cooperation of the entity or person that sold you the license. So don’t waste time trying to figure out some other odd workaround.
You need to a) know the email that was given to the vendor at the time of purchase to be the license administrator and b) that account needs to be able to sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center to then manage and assign the VL role to one of your own emails. (More on this below).
We have wasted countless hours ourselves trying to get help from the VLSC support chain, and perhaps if we had spent just a little more and were able to provide the original invoices, order numbers, contract numbers, license details, maybe they possibly could have helped transfer the VL role somehow or provided the original order email. But we had no such luck. The licenses are worth thousands of dollars in some cases so in their eyes, some other company asking them to transfer ownership rights is likely a security problem.
So let’s assume that you can track down the original email that was set as the license administrator at the time of purchase which is always step A and is necessary. (If you can’t get this you’re out of luck.) The next step is to see if it is an account capable of signing in to the Microsoft 365 admin portal: https://admin.microsoft.com
If it is not a Microsoft Work Account you will not by default be able to do this. The admin center is only available to be signed into with a work/school account, not a Microsoft personal account. If the email used at purchase was a personal account, the quickest and simplest way to get this account capable of signing in to the Microsoft 365 Admin portal is to purchase one of Microsoft’s cheapest business plans using the same account, on a monthly term (so that you can cancel later- you will have to manually change the term when purchasing). Exchange Online Plan 1 is a good option: Compare Microsoft Exchange Online Plans Microsoft 365
If it is already Microsoft Work account (meaning, it is hosted within an existing Microsoft 365 tenant) but does not have a Microsoft 365 Admin role assigned, as far as we understand, you will not be able to sign in to view and manage licenses. The solution would be to have an assigned administrator of this tenant grant the user in question temporary admin rights so that they can then sign in and manage the volume licenses, and grant the VL admin role to one of your own emails.
Here is a link to the direct page where the Volume Licensing tab is supposed to be found:
https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal/Home#/subscriptions/vlnew/downloadsandkeys
It’s normally found in the Microsoft 365 Admin portal under Billing, Your Products – but IT WILL NOT SHOW UP if you aren’t signing in with the correct user.
Likewise, if you try to navigate directly to it using the above link, with a wrong account, it will simply tell you that you don’t have access yet.
Here is what the Volume Licensing Section looks like if you are signed in with the VL Admin user:
When you click on contracts, it will show you all of the volume licensing contracts tied to this account and what role you have – if you are an administrator, then you can grant the same role to any other email that you choose:
To do this go back to the root Volume Licensing screen and click on Add Users to Contract then click Add or edit users
Here type the email that you want to be the new/additional Administrator (it will look within the tenant first but if you fully type the email out, then press enter, it will let you grant rights to an external user.)
Enter the display name then Review + Apply
You then choose the contract to assign to this user:
Then assign the administrator role:
Make sure to click Verify and save user assignments:
The user in question will then receive an EMAIL INVITE which they will have to open to accept and activate the role assignment. If the target user is not mail-enabled for example an unlicensed admin, just do a trial license in 365 admin center under Billing>Purchase Services (look for Business Premium or E3, those usually have free trials) and assign one of the licenses to the admin temporarily so you can receive the email and click on the link within. Make sure to go back and cancel your trial.
And voila you have your volume licenses back.