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If you’re a normal IT professional and like building test environments before going ahead and activating your copy of window server you might become frustrated when it comes time to activate and it fails. Then you realize “Oh wait, I haven’t switched my OS copy over!” Here is a quick guide to a very common gotcha.

You’ll want to “set” your edition from “evaluation” to “standard” or “datacenter”. To switch these you need to use the following command to move to “standard” from “evaluation”

DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:<insert default product key here> /AcceptEula

The Product keys here are known as default product keys. They are what you use to register that “version” of the OS.

After which, then you can perform a regular activation using the product key you had purchased.

Example Activating Windows Server 2019 Evaluation to Standard:

DISM /online /Set-Edition:ServerStandard /ProductKey:N69G4-B89J2-4G8F4-WWYCC-J464C /AcceptEula

To see what you can “upgrade” to you can use the following command in an elevated command prompt:

dism /online /get-targeteditions

Below is a list of the product keys available for each operating system:

Table from https://docs.ovh.com/gb/en/dedicated/windows-key/

Then to register your “purchased” product key open an elevated command prompt window and enter:

slmgr.vbs -ipk <insert purchased product key here>

Windows 10 Pro Default Product Key

slmgr.vbs -ipk VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T

Windows 10 Default Product Keys to be used with OEM Activation 3.0 – for manufacturers

Windows 10 Default Product Keys to be used without OEM Activation 3.0 – for system builders

File and Printer Sharing by default is configured as disabled. This prevents the hidden C share from being accessible. To enable file and printer sharing it must be performed from an elevated command prompt.

netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group=”File and Printer Sharing” new enable=Yes

If you need the nitty-gritty details of your latency look no further than “hrping”. It’s super easy to use and requires no installation. It’s an executable which I always put in my binaries folder sometimes named “bin, binaries, EXE, or executables”. I usually stick it close the the root of the C:\ drive. To get a traditional continuous readout with the sub-millisecond responses use the following command where ping is replaced with hrping and then the host you wish to pick and the tack t for continuous ping.

hrping www.example.com -t

If you’re interested in having a nice graphical representation displayed in realtime (I believe that this data is pulled using the windows high performance counters) just by adding a tack g.

hrping www.example.com -t -g

You can obtain a copy for yourself here: https://www.cfos.de/en/ping/ping.htm

This morning I docked my Microsoft Surface Pro (5th Generation) and had no network connectivity. An indicator that gave a decent hint to the cause of the problem was that the desk switch’s link-layer status light was out. I had found that the docking station wasn’t receiving enough power to operate the Ethernet interface. However, the issue was hard to identify as the 2 monitors that I have running off of that docking station were working perfectly. I had found that the power cable was simply loose and it’s partial insertion was the cause the of the issue. I unplugged the dock and plugged it back in and now is functioning properly.

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