After the 180-day evaluation period elapses, the server warns you in various ways depending on the edition: Server 2012 Standard and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter editions come with the activation key pre-installed. Please remain calm and stay polite or nobody will want to help you.Īll evaluation versions are fully functional during the evaluation period, although booting to Safe mode is not available. There is no way to hit Next because it is disabled. I hit Install Now and it asks for a Product Key. I get to the screen that say Setup ServerĢ012 R2 which means I'm installing the right OS. I took the image _RTM.130821-1623_X64FRE_SERVER_SOLUTION_EN-US-IRM_SSSO_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5.ISO and copied it to a bootable USB drive.
