Tutorial on Upgrading from an Evaluation Installation of Windows Server

This video will demonstrate the Upgrading procedure from an Evaluation Installation of Windows Server.

Before we get started upgrading your system from an evaluation version to a full version Your key may be on a COA label somewhere on your system. If you can’t see the key on the sticker then scratch the strip with your fingernail. We recommend not using a coin as it can sometimes damage the characters underneath.

When you’re on your home screen you can identify that your machine is running an evaluation version by this text at the bottom right of your screen. It will show your Windows version as well as a countdown of the remaining days it’s valid for. This can occur even with an activated version of Windows and the system’s operating system will need to be upgraded to the full version.

To double-check if your version of Windows is activated navigate to your “Control Panel” and select “System and Security”. And then select “System”. Wait for the settings to load and it should show you at the bottom if your operating system is actually activated. Once you have confirmed this activated we’re going to check the Windows version in the Windows script host via the Command Prompt. Open the command prompt by searching “cmd” and make sure you are running as an administrator. Type in “slmgr.vbs /dlv” Type in “slmgr.vbs /dlv” and hit “Enter”.

The “Script Host” box will show you the Windows version which should show as an evaluation version. Now that we have confirmed that the system is definitely running an evaluation version we are now going to see what versions are available for this machine to upgrade to. In the current command prompt we’ll now type “DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions”. You should now be shown the current versions that can be upgraded to. For this example To set the system to the full edition “DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:” “DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:” “DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:” and then your Product Key followed by ” /AcceptEula” Your machine will now start to upgrade the system to the full version.

Once it’s complete the machine should start a standard update restart of the system. If you experience an error at this stage along the lines of “An error has occurred applying the target edition” just perform a manual restart of the server and it should work just the same. Your machine will start its restart process and you will see the updates being applied. Once these updates have been applied simply log back into your machine using your credentials. You should now see the text at the bottom of your screen has cleared. And that’s it,

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