Instructions for installing and activating Windows Server (Evaluation Version)

To activate the Windows Server, it may be necessary to enter the activation key via the command line / CMD with administrator rights. The first step is to check whether the correct server version is already installed on the device.

After downloading the file from the product activation page or the official Microsoft website, you might have installed the „Evaluation“ version. Please look into your system information to confirm if you have installed the “Standard Evaluation“, “Standard“ or “DataCenter“ Version. If you have a „Evaluation“ Version just follow this upgrade guide. If you have the full version like “Windows Server Standard” or “Windows Server DatacCnter” installed follow the key activation guide.

If the “Standard Evaluation” or a version other than the one you purchased the key for is installed, as shown in the following image, you must first perform a version change.

Upgrade guide:

For the activation of the your Server Version you first need to upgrade it to the “Windows Server“ Version you want. Therefore, you need to use the generic key for the desired version.

Open the command line / CMD with administrator rights and input the following line:

dism /online /get-targeteditions

After that input one of the following lines with the generic key, that matches the Server version you want:

After switching to a different version, you should check for updates, have them installed and restart the server once.

Once you have the desired target version on the server,

activate the server by entering the following command via the command line / CMD with administrator rights. Please note that the character string AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCCC-DDDDD-DDD-EEEEE must be replaced by the key you received from us:

slmgr /ipk AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCCC-DDDDD-EEEEE

This would read as follows for the key “HJ1HG-HU44Z-68HJP-V79W4-1R2R4”:

slmgr /ipk HJ1HG-HU44Z-68HJP-V79W4-1R2R4

Activation of the key can be forced by entering a second command:

slmgr /ato

Now you should have a working and activated Windows Server. It might take some time for the activation to be shown. If the command line outputs an error, please wait some time and reboot the system. Then look in the system information if the Windows is activated.