How to Activate Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard from the Evaluation Version

We purchased a new server from our vendor.

I asked them to install Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and update everything and setup RAID before delivering it to us.

However when I went to activate Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard it didn’t work.

The vendor installed the evaluation version which made it a little complicated.

I had to do some light Googling to find out how to get it to work.

I wanted to consolidate all of that information in one location so its easier for me to find the next time I need to do this.

Naturally, I already purchased a legitimate education version from our volume licensing partner.

Here it is:

Try an SKUUPGRADE – the eval issue can as such not be activated.

To determine the installed edition, run:

DISM /online /Get-CurrentEdition

To check the possible target editions, run:

DISM /online /Get-TargetEditions

Finally, to initiate an upgrade, run:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:<edition> /AcceptEula /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX


For me  I used: DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /AcceptEula /ProductKey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

I hope this post was useful.

Thanks to Andrew Schulman, TomTom, user282317 from Serverfault.com.