You installed Windows Server Evaluation for evaluating, 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 Full Version first. After that, you can insert your license key. In this article, you will learn how to upgrade from Windows Server Evaluation license to Full Version.

Find Windows Server edition

You can find the Windows Server edition in the right corner and the days remaining before the grace period expires.

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 Server edition with the DISM PowerShell command.

DISM /Online /Get-CurrentEdition

The output below appears.

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 cmdlet to list the Windows Server OS name and edition.

Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object WindowsProductName, WindowsEditionId

The output below shows that Microsoft Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation is running.

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

Now that you have the Windows Server edition, let’s go to the next step.

Get Windows Server target editions

Check to which Windows Server versions you can upgrade.

DISM /Online /Get-TargetEditions

The output below shows that you 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

Get Windows Server Generic Volume License Key (GVLK)

Find all the Windows Server OS edition and their GVLKs in the table below.

It’s essential that you copy the correct Generic Volume License Key for your edition from the table below. You will upgrade the Windows Server edition to that version.

In our example, we like to upgrade to Windows Server 2019 Standard.

Upgrade Windows Server Evaluation to Full Version

Convert from Windows Server Evaluation to Full Version with one of the commands below.

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 run the command below in PowerShell to upgrade to Windows Server 2019 Standard.

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

Note: After you run the command, it will take some time, and you have to wait for it to finish. It’s completely normal if you see the progress hang on 10% for a while.

The output below appears. 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, run the command to 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. Now, you can use your purchased Windows Server license to license Windows Server Standard edition.

That’s it!

Read more: Windows Server post-installation configuration »

Conclusion

You learned how to upgrade Windows Server Evaluation to Full Version. Ensure that you license the Windows Server within the 180-day evaluation period. Otherwise, the Windows Server will shut down.

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