Server 2012 Data Center upgrade to 2019 standard

Posted by cryptofuturebright@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 7 comments

Like the title says looking to upgrade and handful of servers from 2012 dc to 2019 standard. I understand its not officially supported and there is some reg hacks out there that supposedly work but they havent worked for me they only result in a roll back at the last step back 2012 dc. Anyone able to get this to work?

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7 Comments

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hipaaradius@reddit

I've done the registry edit to upgrade across SKUs and it worked. No idea if it had any long-term repercussions as I upgraded the server during a 2-week notice period to wrap up some loose ends.

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iluvfitnessmodels@reddit

Easy, Upgrade to 2012r2 Evaluation (Keys are found with Google) theb Upgrade to 2019

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anxiousinfotech@reddit

You can do an in place reinstall of Standard over Datacenter. It works just like any other upgrade install, you just end up with a different edition of the same version. You can then upgrade to the Standard edition of a newer version. We did it on some servers someone installed as Datacenter when Standard should have been used. 99% sure it was Server 2016, but it may have been 2012 R2. It's been a while and my memory ain't what it used to be. We never ended up running into any issues. While it is unsupported, there's really no reason for it being unsupported other than Microsoft not wanting you to have an easy way to move to a cheaper license. As always with any upgrade process, backups, backups, backups!

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AlejoMSP@reddit

Thought you couldn’t upgrade/downgrade DC to STD.

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cryptofuturebright@reddit (OP)

officially no

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satsun_@reddit

I think I've successfully downgraded only Server 2016 from DC to Standard and may have done 2019, can't remember doing it for 2012 R2. If this is a VM, I would power down and snapshot, then I would upgrade 2012 to 2019 DC, then downgrade 2019 DC to Standard and see where that gets me.

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cryptofuturebright@reddit (OP)

No license for 2019 dc only 2012 dc and standard 2019