Microsoft Operating System Forum

Chris

Hi Everyone,



Here is the scenario: My company is going to change physical locations in
about 4 months, through some miracle I've managed to convinced our president
to abandon 2 out of 3 of the servers we are currently running. Getting rid
of the third server is impossible because its got a 10 year old application
I can't move, so I'm stuck with it. Now, the two servers I'm going to ditch
are 5 years old but they are both running windows server 2003. On the
shinny new servers I'm going to install server 2003 but I want transfer the
licenses currently used on the old servers to the new ones. This would save
me the cash on buying a new copy of server 2003. I also want to transfer
the CALs from the old severs to the new ones. How do I go about this? Could
I just install sever 2003 with my current licenses at the new location then
after its all up and running simply unplug the older severs or is there
something that has to be done on the legal side of things?



I hope this explains my situation enough to get an answer.



Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me out

leew [MVP]

Chris wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
>
>
> Here is the scenario: My company is going to change physical locations in
> about 4 months, through some miracle I've managed to convinced our president
> to abandon 2 out of 3 of the servers we are currently running. Getting rid
> of the third server is impossible because its got a 10 year old application
> I can't move, so I'm stuck with it. Now, the two servers I'm going to ditch
> are 5 years old but they are both running windows server 2003. On the
> shinny new servers I'm going to install server 2003 but I want transfer the
> licenses currently used on the old servers to the new ones. This would save
> me the cash on buying a new copy of server 2003. I also want to transfer
> the CALs from the old severs to the new ones. How do I go about this? Could
> I just install sever 2003 with my current licenses at the new location then
> after its all up and running simply unplug the older severs or is there
> something that has to be done on the legal side of things?
>
>
>
> I hope this explains my situation enough to get an answer.
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me out
>
>
You need to check what kind of licenses you have. Most people in
smaller organizations buy the licenses with the server - servers that
come with Server preinstalled are using OEM licenses which CANNOT be
transferred to a new server - they live and die with the hardware they
are installed on.

The 10 year old app may be something you can get running in a virtual
machine - I would strongly recommend you explore that option. VMWare
server and Virtual Server are both free server products. The CALs
(other than the 5 that came with the server) should be transferable.