Introduction

You’ve installed an evaluation version of Windows server for testing, or training purposes. Now you want to apply a license key, but it’s not activating, and an error appears. That’s because you have to convert from evaluation to a full Version first. After that, you can insert your license key. In this article, you will learn how to upgrade Windows from an evaluation license to a full Version.

The Windows license evaluation period begins and runs for 180 days.

Note: You can extend the Windows server evaluation period 6 times and run a trial version for a total of 3 years.

Check the current Windows edition with the DISM PowerShell command.

DISM /Online /Get-CurrentEdition

DISM will report results similar to this:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.17763.3406

Image Version: 10.0.17763.5696

Current edition is:

Current Edition : ServerStandardEval

Run the Get-ComputerInfo PowerShell cmdlet to list the Windows Server OS name and edition.

Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object WindowsProductName, WindowsEditionId

This example indicates that Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation is running.

WindowsProductName                      WindowsEditionId
------------------                      ----------------
Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation ServerStandardEval

Let’s take the next step and modify the running edition value.

Get Windows Server target editions

First, check which Windows Server versions we can upgrade to.

DISM /Online /Get-TargetEditions

The output below shows that we can upgrade to one of the following editions: Server Standard or Server Datacenter.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.17763.3406

Image Version: 10.0.17763.5696

Editions that can be upgraded to:

Target Edition : ServerStandard
Target Edition : ServerDatacenter

Upgrade Windows Server Evaluation to Full Version

We can convert from the evaluation edition to a full version with one of the following commands. Server Standard version:

DISM /Online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /productkey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX /AcceptEula

Server Datacenter version:

DISM /Online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter /productkey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX /AcceptEula

In our example, we will instruct DISM to upgrade from eval to Windows Server 2019 Standard. Using the GVLK for KMS activation.

DISM /Online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /productkey:N69G4-B89J2-4G8F4-WWYCC-J464C /AcceptEula

Note: Running the command may take some time. It’s completely normal if you see the progress hang on 10% for a while.

Once DISM has finished you will be prompted to restart. Press Y to restart the computer.

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.17763.3406

Image Version: 10.0.17763.5696

Starting to update components...
Starting to install product key...
Finished installing product key.

Removing package Microsoft-Windows-ServerStandardEvalEdition~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.17763.1
[==========================100.0%==========================]
Finished updating components.

Starting to apply edition-specific settings...
Finished applying edition-specific settings.

The operation completed successfully.
Restart Windows to complete this operation.
Do you want to restart the computer now? (Y/N)

Verify Windows Server version

After the computer restarts, let’s verify the Windows Server version.

Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object WindowsProductName, WindowsEditionId

The output shows that the Windows Edition ID is Server Standard.

WindowsProductName           WindowsEditionId
------------------           ----------------
Windows Server 2019 Standard ServerStandard

You will see the Activate Windows watermark in the right corner. You can now use your purchased Windows license to activate.