What?
Convert a Windows 2008 or 2012 Server from Standard > Enterprise > Data-center
Why?
Several reasons including but not limited to:
- You have installed a Standard Edition and realized, it needs to be an Enterprise post deployment of applications and server sign off.
- Your company is looking for moving into Virtual from Physical and there are going to be a lot of machines in Virtual. [with respect to License optimization as purchasing a Data Center License will entitle you to use an unlimited number of VM Guests, of course you have to read thru the license terms to get a full picture, will get a new post on this at the earliest]
How?
- Check what are the supported upgrade Editions before proceeding.
- DISM /Online /Get-TargetEditions
- You will get an output similar to this
- Editions that can be upgraded to:
Target Edition : ServerDataCenter
Target Edition : ServerEnterprise
- Editions that can be upgraded to:
- Once you decide which edition you are going to go with, get the License key Ready for that version and issue the command:[In this example, I am intending to upgrade my OS to Datacenter.
- DISM /Online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX /AcceptEula
Gotchas & Additional Info:
- You can not downgrade it from an advanced edition.
- When dealing with Domain controllers, ensure do demote the DC, make the changes and Promote it to a DC.
- DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition can be used to get the current OS info
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