My trial version timebomb is about ready to go off. The trial version is Win server 2003 standard edition x64, and the retail version I bought is enterprise edition x64. I don't need to upgrade to the enterprise version, I just need to convert the trial version to the retail version. (I don't want to do a clean install of the Enterprise version since I have finally got the server set up just how I want it). I know the 25 digit enterprise key will activate a standard edition installation (per Microsoft web site, via 'downgrading a license'). Is it possible to upgrade to the retail version without inserting the CD and 'upgrading'? The reason is that it's a pain in the a** for me to hook up a CD drive to this particular machine. I can copy all the CD files to the server's hard drive, but I don't know if this will allow me to upgrade or not. Another way to ask this question is, "Does the upgrade process require booting from the CD at any point?"

You should start by making a ntbackup of the system. Playing to the angels Les Paul (1915-2009)

You can not use Enterprise to upgrade a Standard version of windows wheither or not its a trial version or not. Why didn't you just buy Standard? Not sure where you are getting your info from concerning that an enterprise license will activate a standard version. I know this can be done with Office but for example you can't use a Office 2007 license to activate a Office 2003 install. I suspect you misread the license agreement which allows you to buy a license for 2007 but only install 2003 and still be legal.

Wanderer- thank you for the reply. I got the information from MS knowledge base article 810613. The article is "paths for upgrading to Windows Server 2003" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810613 It is not a clearly written article, but I gather from it that if you have Server 2003 Standard installed, you can upgrade TO Standard, Enterprise, SBS 2003 Standard, or SBS 2003 Premium. If you have Enterprise, you can only upgrade TO Enterprise. If you read the article the other possible way to interpret it, it doesn't make sense because most of the 'upgrades' would be downgrades. "Why didn't you just buy Standard?" Yeah, good question. It's 'cuz I found a screaming good deal on Ebay. I installed it on a different server, and it worked great so I bought another to use after the trial version on the first server timebombed. Concerning the Enterprise key activating a Standard instal - I got that information from MS sales. They said I could 'downgrade' the Enterprise License (and in fact just entering the Enterprise key during an installation of Standard would work), but of course this is not the situation I am in, and who knows if the information I was given was accurate or not. Thank you for your further thoughts Thanks to jefro for the tip. I will do this, and in fact will do a 'test upgrade' on a mirrored disk before doing the upgrade on the actual disk. Another solution would be to somehow copy all the users and settings from the Standard to a clean install of the Enterprise, but I don't suppose that's very easy. There's no "Files and Settings transfer wizard"

My best tip is to call MS. They should know.

You can go from 2003 std to 2003 enterprise but that isn't what you want to do.

Problem resolution: I copied the Enterprise version installation CD to the hard drive (across the network) and ran setup from there, as an upgrade. All went smoothly