What's the difference between activating windows via DISM vs Start Menu > Activate Windows?

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BobbyMSDN

I have a VM that I run WIN SERVER 2016 DATACENTER R2 on. I tried activating it via this command:

Dism /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter /AcceptEula /ProductKey:{PRODUCT KEY}
It took over an hour, but said it completed successfully. However, I saw a message on my desktop that said Windows was still not activated. A co-worker suggested I navigate to Start Menu > Activate Windows, and enter the product key via that Desktop app. I did so, and it seemed to work.

Question: Is there a difference between the two methods? Is the Dism command doing something that the Activate Windows Desktop app isn't?

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