CASE: in our training center there was a training planned for Microsoft Small Business Server 2008. For this training (called a MOC) we received several virtual machines on the Hyper-V platform. 2 x Windows Vista, 1 W2K3 SBS R2, 1 W2K8 Std, 2 W2K8 SBS. All these servers needed to be activated.
ISSUE; it’s obvious that his activation could not be done through the internet but by phone (releasing all those servers on our environment would be a laugh). When trying to activate by phone we got the message that it was not a valid license. When we attach the machine directly to the internet (whitout harming our environment) we get error “49165 0xC004C00D slerror.h The activation server determined the license is invalid. SL_E_CHPA_INVALID_ACTCONFIG_ID “
How to determine what license is installed;
go to “START” and click “Command Prompt“
rund “slmgr.vbs -dli” and after a few seconds you get a box with all necessary information. In our case it was a evaluation license which was allready expired.
SOLUTION; you can extend the evaluation periode of a W2K8 server up to 240 days (60d +3 x 60d)
* go to “START” en richtclick “Command Prompt“
* select “Run as Administrator“
* run script “lsmgr.vbs -rearm” and reboot your machine
HOW TO EXTEND MICROSOFT SERVER 2008 EVALUATION PERIODE