Windows Server: Extend expired Evaluation Period

Windows Server Aug 12, 2021

Have you ever used an evaluation license within Windows Server and had it expire on you just before you've finished your project?  Yip, I think we've all hit that snag every so often.

In this article, I want to cover how you extend the Windows evaluation period for the server.

Windows Server 2016/2019

To reactivate your trial license, you need to open a command prompt; this can be something like Command Prompt or PowerShell.

The Software Licensing Management Tool (SLMGR) tool is the one you want to invoke.  There are a lot of switches with this tool.  The ones we are concerned with are:

slmgr.vbs -dlv
SLMGR verbose information

This command displays the current license information with activation information as well.  It's a pretty helpful command and provides a great deal of information.

The second command is the one that rearms the license:

slmgr.vbs -rearm
SLMGR rearm

Be sure to reboot the server after this command to initiate the changes.  Once you have done that, you can again use the -dlv switch to check the licensing status and how many rearms you have left.

This syntax will work on older versions of Windows Server as well.

Tags

Great! You've successfully subscribed.
Great! Next, complete checkout for full access.
Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.