Is this still not supported in server 2012? I did about a weeks worth of working setting servers up thinking i was getting Datacenter keys turns out i was only provided with Standard keys.

• Edited by JustusIV Monday, September 24, 2012 1:16 PM

Hey Justus:

Standard and Datacenter have feature parity in Windows Server 2012.  So no need to "downgrade" from a technical perspective.  The only licensing differences are in pricing and licensing rights for virtualization and/or number of physical processors - 2 VMs per license on Standard and unlimited with Datacenter. The Licensing & Pricing FAQ may provide additional context on the differences.

- C

• Proposed as answer by Miya YaoModerator Wednesday, September 26, 2012 7:00 AM
• Unproposed as answer by Miya YaoModerator Friday, September 28, 2012 6:46 AM

Entering a Standard license key into a Datacenter install didn't work for me. I think you have to reinstall Standard from scratch. You can however upgrade from Standard to Datacenter.

This is a real pain, and it's not obvious why you can't downgrade licensing.

• Proposed as answer by David Trounce Thursday, September 27, 2012 5:31 PM
• Marked as answer by Miya YaoModerator Monday, October 08, 2012 6:09 AM

Again, as stated earlier, there is no difference in the capability, so it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense in any situation I can think of.

As the OP said, he already fully configured a Datacenter install, but only has licenses for Standard. So he needs to be able to convert his preexisting install to Standard. This is a valid use case, but it can't be done (unlike going from Standard to Datacenter). So it does make sense to want to do this.

The only solution is a complete re-install, which seems unnecessary in Server 2012 given the only difference is just a licensing change for the # of VMs permitted.

• Marked as answer by Miya YaoModerator Monday, October 08, 2012 6:09 AM

Id also liked to know if there is any way to downgrade. Would be an verry helpful feature for me.Or may and Repair-Intallation from cd can fix this?

• Edited by Armin_Kraemer Friday, December 27, 2013 8:14 AM

This way is probably not supported, and I would not try it on something like a DC... but here is what I recently did to downgrade Server 2012 R2 Datacenter to Server 2012 R2 Standard.

Edit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

Key: EditionID

Change To: ServerStandard

Key: ProductName

Change To: Windows Server 2012 Standard

Note that in this example I am going to be "upgrading" to Server 2012 R2 Standard, so I put in Windows Server 2012 Standard as the ProductName, not Server 2012 R2 Standard.  After the upgrade, this key will change itself to proper version.

Next mount or insert your Server 2012 installation media, run the installer.  Do not check for updates, I chose Server 2012 R2 Standard with gui as my OS, and pick Upgrade.

It will go through the standard upgrade process, and you now have downgraded from Server 2012 R2 Datacenter to Server 2012 R2 Standard.

After that I ran slui 3 from command prompt, entered my Server 2012 R2 Standard product key, and activation went through.

I'm about to test doing this on a DC, but honestly if you were to try this, I would demote the server, remove DNS and DHCP, then do the "downgrade". 

Once again, I highly doubt this method is supported, so make sure you have a full backup of your data or VM.

• Proposed as answer by Niels_k Wednesday, August 13, 2014 3:38 PM

This way is probably not supported, and I would not try it on something like a DC... but here is what I recently did to downgrade Server 2012 R2 Datacenter to Server 2012 R2 Standard.

Edit: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

Key: EditionID

Change To: ServerStandard

Key: ProductName

Change To: Windows Server 2012 Standard

Note that in this example I am going to be "upgrading" to Server 2012 R2 Standard, so I put in Windows Server 2012 Standard as the ProductName, not Server 2012 R2 Standard.  After the upgrade, this key will change itself to proper version.

Next mount or insert your Server 2012 installation media, run the installer.  Do not check for updates, I chose Server 2012 R2 Standard with gui as my OS, and pick Upgrade.

It will go through the standard upgrade process, and you now have downgraded from Server 2012 R2 Datacenter to Server 2012 R2 Standard.

After that I ran slui 3 from command prompt, entered my Server 2012 R2 Standard product key, and activation went through.

I'm about to test doing this on a DC, but honestly if you were to try this, I would demote the server, remove DNS and DHCP, then do the "downgrade". 

Once again, I highly doubt this method is supported, so make sure you have a full backup of your data or VM.

I have tested this method to convert Windows 7 Enterprise to Professional successfully.

Now I have to convert 2012 Datacenter to Standrard as I deployed SCCM 2012 on the trial version of Datacenter. I'm going to do this again on server now.

• Edited by Amir H Jafarian Wednesday, February 19, 2014 1:09 AM

Thanks!  Worked for me.  Ran Without demoting or removing DNS, DHCP, or other services but of course domain was down during that time.  No command prompt needed.

regedit

reboot

run installer

no update

upgrade

enter new key through gui

• Edited by MS learner 227 Thursday, June 12, 2014 12:21 AM

Thanks Derekcn, this actually works! This is what the forums are for! :D

Niels_k

Thank you so much. Saved me a lot of time.

This definitely works and I used it on a server with windows 2008R2 Datacentre. I then ran the process and upgrades to 2012 R2 Standard solved my issue.

Fantastic this saved me a few hours rebuilding a new server incorrectly deployed. 

Thanks for sharing! solved my issue, downgraded of windows 2012R2 DAtacenter with AD, DNS, DHCP and WINS to windows 2012 R2 standard edition. no issues at all.