Today, I will be showing you what to do when a customer calls in reporting that their product key is not working. And this is usually because they've installed like a VM with uh Eva the Eval version of an operating system. So in this case, I have Windows server 2019 standard evaluation installed in a VM.
And when they come into the system properties and click this change product key to enter the product key, they will get mm copy that again. Show you the error that they get and say the product key you entered, didn't work, check the product key and try again or enter a different one. And you know, you validate that this is the correct product key.
Um A lot of times we'll have them send a picture of the product key on the code sticker that's on the server just to make sure that there, there was no mistakes. But uh even if it is correct, it's not gonna work if you have an Eval copy and you're trying to enter the product key this way. So I'll show you what we need to do. We need to convert it from eval to a license copy.
We'll open a Powershell run as administrator and I'm gonna be using a KMS key. But you could, if it's, if it's a standard version on the host, you could just use the product key that's on the sticker on the label on the server. So that's what you'll be putting in this command. Mhm And enter, it's gonna run and it's gonna remove the val package from the server.
And this could take a minute or two. And also note that if they're running data center on the host, that they may be trying to use this A VMA, it's automatic virtual machine activation key, but this key will not work for this process. You can't convert an EVAL copy to license using an A VMA key.
So if that's the case, you could use this KMS key and you can Google, you know, 2019 standard KMS key and you'll find a Microsoft article that has all of the keys that are published by Microsoft. And you could use a KMS key to convert from val to a license copy. But unless you have a KMS server, it's not gonna gonna work. So after you're done converting, you can then enter the a BMA key.
So it'll say the operation completed sly press type Y to restart. I let it reboot real quick and start that anyway. And this is a VM. So I'm running on VM Ware workstation, but this will be the same in Hyper V and it's gonna finish removing those Eval components. Just takes a couple of seconds and then it logs us back in.
And if we go into control panel again where we were looking at the system and now we're converted to 2019 standard, it's activated. So that is all that you really should need to do. So that's, is all the information you need of when a product he's not working. Just check.
The most common thing is that it's in an Eval copy of the install and you have to convert it and you can convert it with a retail product key that is on the sticker on the server or you can use that KMS key and I might not say that and, and then once, once you convert it with the KMS key, you can enter in the A AVMA key and you should be able to do that right here. The AAVA key will be accepted once it's out of val mode.
So I hope this video helped you out and thank you for watching. Have a nice day.
