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Activating Trial OS Versions

I  sometimes contemplate writing on topics that may have obvious conclusions for many IT-Pros. Often I see questions on certain topics posted all over the place with not a whole lot in the way of clear answers.  Today's post will be one of these.

Here is the scenario:

  • you are running a Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter host
  • you have stood up VMs using Microsoft Trial Versions
  • your OS has expired or is about to expire (preventing work from being done)
  • you read some posts, telling you to execute the following at the command line (to activate the 2012 Standard):
 slmgr /ipk DBGBW-NPF86-BJVTX-K3WKJ-MTB6V  

But, after hitting the enter key you get:

Here is the Solution:

  • verify the version of the OS you are running by executing the following at a command prompt:
 DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition 
  • if you are running a trial version of Server 2012 Standard, you will get a response similar to this:
  • obtain the product key (this is not a license) for the version that you would like to activate
  • execute the following at the command prompt:
DISM.exe /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:DBGBW-NPF86-BJVTX-K3WKJ-MTB6V /AcceptEula
  • if everything works out, you will get a response similar to this:

Hopefully  that helps some of you out there in IT-land!