Grace Period Registry Key Avoid It Creating Again
If yous accept a home lab surroundings or other lab that you continually examination various solutions, licensing and trial expiration is a challenge that you constantly tend to meet. Information technology is just function of the fun of lab environments. While most trials are fairly "hard and fast" and don't allow you lot to reset the trial expiration, if you work with Microsoft Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services (RDS), there is a "hack" that allows you to effectively reset the expiration of Remote Desktop Services grace period where you tin substantially rewind the clock on your RDS licensing if you lot are making utilize of this role inside your lab surroundings. In my lab environment, I am making utilise of Windows Server 2022 for my Windows workloads. In this mail, I volition bear witness how to reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2022 and 2022 Windows Server. Let's come across.
Remote Desktop Services RDS Licensing
When you lot install Windows Server 2022 or 2022 as with previous Windows versions, you get the normal ability to have the ii sessions that you generally accept available for administering. However, when y'all install the true Remote Desktop Services role, yous have the ability to have multiple sessions to your server.
When you lot install the part, by default, you take a 120-twenty-four hour period grace period that Microsoft gives you to properly license the server for use every bit an RDS installation. If y'all are using a server in a lab environment, most probable, y'all are not going to license this type of server outside of production.
Once the 120 solar day grace period has expired, y'all volition see the following error when yous effort to RDP to the server:
Yous can either redeploy your Windows Server which volition permit y'all to spin up a new 120 solar day grace period, or yous tin really reset the grace catamenia. If you are like me, the latter is certainly the path of least resistance and work involved. Allow'south take a await at how to reset the 120 solar day RDS grace period.
You tin can have a closer look at the official licensing documentation for Remote Desktop Services here:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-services/rds-customer-access-license
Reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2022 and 2019
For the exercise of resetting the 120 twenty-four hours grace menstruation for the RDS function, the registry editor is your friend and makes this process easy. Before we brainstorm, there are a couple of disclaimers to make here. Editing the registry can effect in totally destroying a Windows system, so go on with whatever depression-level registry edits with caution. If you are working with a virtual machine, it is e'er a good exercise to create a quick snapshot of the Windows virtual machine earlier you begin.
Additionally, for production systems, resetting the 120 day grace menstruum should only be washed for systems that are non in production equally you lot should have proper licensing installed for production utilise.
To reset the grace flow, there are actually simply 3 steps involved:
- Change permissions on the RCM > GracePeriod central
- Delete the "Timebomb" registry entry
- Reboot the server
Now that we have level-set, once you take your snapshot or other backup created, you demand to navigate to the following location on your RDS server:
ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlTerminal ServerRCMGracePeriod
Change Permissions on the RDS GracePeriod key and delete the key
After yous have navigated to the cardinal documented higher up, correct-click GracePeriod and select Permissions.
For obvious reasons, there are no default permissions on this key for even Administrators. So you lot have to get-go take ownership of the primal earlier you can delete the timebomb value. Click the Advanced button on the permissions dialog box.
Click the Change button next to the Possessor.
Here I take selected local administrators group as the owner of the central. All the same, you lot will want to choose whichever user/grouping that you want to utilize to delete the registry key. Select the options to supercede owners and replace all child object permissions.
Confirm the replacement of permissions on the registry key.
Now that we have inverse ownership on the key, we can actually fix permissions without getting permissions errors. Here I am granting administrators full control on the central.
Now, with permissions ready, right-click the timebomb value in the GracePeriod key and Delete.
Ostend the deletion of the registry entry.
Next, the only affair left to do is reboot your server. One time the server is rebooted, yous can bask once again having the total 120 day grace menstruation for your RDS server in the lab environment.
Video Overview of the Procedure
If you desire to take a look at a video of the process, you lot can watch the video walkthrough below.
Concluding Thoughts
The procedure to reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2022 and 2022 Windows Servers as well equally older server versions such as Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 is very straightforward using this process to delete the timebomb registry primal.
Keep in listen this is not supported and certainly not a procedure for running in production. Yet, it is very handy for lab environments to keep from having to redeploy Windows Server virtual machines simply to have a fresh 120 24-hour interval grace period.
Source: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/2020/10/reset-120-day-rds-grace-period-on-2016-and-2019/
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