Downgrading Server Licences

[Allen]

Does anyone have any experience in downgrading Server licenses? Have purchased some 2012 R2 licences and need to downgrade them to 2008 R2, but as they are OEM (purchased from Dabs) Microsoft won't help. They say I need to contact the OEM, but Dabs aren't a manufacturer.

I have contacted Dabs, but I feel like they will be as helpful as a chocolate teapot... They took about half an hour to answer the phone and then didn't have a clue. I am awaiting an email back.

I just need to know if it's possible, like they say on the M$ website (http://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en/lice...ts.aspx#server). And if so, how to do it?

[Marcvs]

I think there is slightly more chance of me being elected president of america next wednesday than you getting anything meaningful out of it.

[Splash]

Nope, you can't. The wording is unclear at best, but essentially how it works is:

you buy a server with an OEM license installed
You buy a license for the current version (so... Server 2012R2 in this case) through either the retail (ie a fully packaged product), System Builder or Volume License channels. You *MUST* use the correct media for the OS that you're installing for the license key you're using (ie Server 2008R2 retail media if using a server 2012R2 retail key)
You install and then when (if?) it doesn't activate you go through phone activation with Microsoft.

As the licenses you bought are OEM Microsoft will provide no support for them, in line with the OEM license agreement you need to approach the OEM (in this case... yourself) for any support issues. This is one of the major reasons that OEM licenses are cheaper, as Microsoft offload the support costs to the OEM.

[Allen]

Yeah, figured this out the hard way...

Looks like we're gonna contact a M$ partner to discuss our licensing, as I have only just found out that we can't even vMotion a virtual unless valid licenses are on both hosts (unlike in my last company, but as a service provider they had the correct licenses).

Oh what joy M$ licensing is!

[Splash]

If it helps I can probably provide a bit more guidance (disclosure: I work for a Microsoft partner - licensing isn't my field, but I've done an amount of training so I can better understand licensing requirements for any design work I do). With regards the vMotion it gets even better - you need SA in order to be able to vMotion (as opposed to HA failover) more than once every 90 days. Fun fun fun!

Feel free to drop me a PM if I can help - I promise I won't try to sell you anything!

[Allen]

Feel free to drop me a PM if I can help - I promise I won't try to sell you anything!

Thanks very much, and if it comes to it, I may very well do that.

[noveltylamp]

I think you'll need to set up an agreement and purchase volume licensing for what you want to do. If you're wanting mobility and failover then often Datacenter edition can work out cheaper where you licence per physical core rather than per OS-instance.