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I have an old Windows 2003 server that I want to vitualize and run it on a new HyperV host.<br />
I will be purchasing a Volume License for Win2008.<br />
Will this license allow me to run the old Win 2003 as a VM?<br />
Also when I move the OS and power it up for the first time Win 2003 will ask for the Windows Key again, what do I do if it does not accept the original key?<br />

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I have an old Windows 2003 server that I want to vitualize and run it on a new HyperV host.
I will be purchasing a Volume License for Win2008.
Will this license allow me to run the old Win 2003 as a VM?
Also when I move the OS and power it up for the first time Win 2003 will ask for the Windows Key again, what do I do if it does not accept the original key?


Microsoft Licensing

Windows Server 2003 was based on Windows XP and was released in four editions: Web, Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter. It also had derivative versions for clusters, storage and Microsoft’s Small Business Server. Important upgrades included integrating Internet Information Services (IIS), improvements to Active Directory (AD) and Group Policy (GP), and the migration to Automated System Recovery (ASR).

Windows Server 2003

Microsoft Virtual Server was a virtualization solution that facilitated the creation of virtual machines on the Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. Virtual machines are created and managed through a web-based interface that relies on Internet Information Services (IIS) or through a Windows client application tool called VMRCplus. Features included Linux guest operating system support, Virtual Disk Precompactor, symmetric multiprocessing (SMP), x64 host operating system support, the ability to mount virtual hard drives on the host machine and additional operating systems support, including Windows Vista, and a volume shadow copy writer.

Microsoft Virtual Server

Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, based on the Microsoft Vista codebase, is the last 32-bit server operating system released by Microsoft. It has a number of versions, including including Foundation, Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, Web, HPC Server, Itanium and Storage; new features included server core installation and Hyper-V.