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