Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of detox1978
detox1978Flag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

asked on

Windows 2012: Activated server says its in evaluation mode

Hi All,

I rebuilt an old server with ESX and installed a Windows 2012 server using the OEM license on the server.  This was 89 days ago (on the 13th January 2021)

The server activated, so i thought everything was ok.  However the desktop states the server is in evaluation mode and it's started to behave "funny" mainly the NIC keeps dropping.

User generated image

I've done this with another server last July, which is still running and has had no issue.

Interestingly the server was build 89 days ago and the license says it expires in 91 days.

Any suggestions? 
Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

That’s an issue for the OEM vendor and license.

What is the network interface?

We have seen non activate and evaluation licenses work forever!!!
Avatar of detox1978

ASKER

The network interface is a vmxnet3

Just comparing the two servers.  When i run the following command;

DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition

Open in new window


Working server
Current Edition : ServerStandard

Misbehaving server
Current Edition : ServerStandardEval.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of arnold
arnold
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
@arnold i get the following error

User generated image
You didn't install and Evaluation Version ?
Avatar of ☠ MASQ ☠
☠ MASQ ☠

You can't use dism to change to an OEM version from Eval, only to Retail.

It doesn't sound like your original installation media was the OEM provided disk.

Just checking, are the two servers you are comparing installed with the same media and key?
@MASQ they were both setup with the same DVD.  It the only one on each host.
BTW there's a typo in Arnold's dism command, put an s on the end so it says targeteditions
yeah, they were bought at the same time, so are identical.
I run this command, which seems to have fixed the issue.  issue now showing as serverstandard.  I had to reactivate the license after a reboot, butthe network seems to be back working again,

dism /online /set-edition:serverstandard /productkey:<productkey> /accepteula


Many thanks for all your help it is greatly appriciated.
You didn't install the OEM version of Windows Server Standard but the Evaluation Version