Ack! SBS 2008 Not Genuine!

The situation we find ourselves in right now is a little silly.

Going to download the Hyper-V manager for Windows Vista SP1, the site called for a Windows Genuine Advantage verification.

Okay, we are on a newly built SBS 2008 box with its Server Core Hyper-V partner almost built and ready for the Windows Vista VM installs.

All of the local workstations on this newly set up SBS domain are Windows XP Pro SP3 but not added to the new domain yet. We could install the Hyper-V manager on any of them anyway.

We ran through the WGA which failed of course. It then required that we download the WGA tool and run it to get a key to get through to the download.

Once the tool ran and we got the key, the WGA site choked on the key and stated that we were not running genuine software.

Yikes!

Okay, so we went into the Change Product Key routine and entered the SBS 2008 Open Value license key and ran through the validation. Well, that failed too!

This is getting a bit nerve racking since the last backup was done about an hour ago when we had finished the last batch of updates. We are working on a new server install for a client in Florida.

Since activation was stating that we had to activate today, meaning the server would go catatonic on us at anytime soon, we needed to get this situation resolved or we were recovering the server before we want to.

Nothing in our searches turned up a plausible solution.

However, since we did not enter the product key for the install (we never do until the server goes live), why not try and rearm the “trial” period and see if that corrects the problem.

1. Start –> right click Command Prompt and Run As Administrator
2. cscript %windir%\System32\slmgr.vbs –rearm [Enter]
3. shutdown –r –t 0 [Enter]
4. Once logged on: Start –> right click Computer –> Properties.
5. Click Change Product Key
6. Enter the product key and go.

Eventually, the following will show:

Lesson learned: Never run the WGA tool for any other OS on the server! 8*O

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*All Mac on SBS posts will not be written on a Mac until we replace our now missing iMac! (previous blog post)

Windows Live Writer