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Windows Server eval: the 180-day treadmill

VPS Hosting by quinnbizz 23 replies 2.8K views
quinnbizz

Member OP

#1

IMO the 180-day Windows Server eval rearm is more common than Microsoft wants to admit. I have been running automation to rearm every 150 days as failsafe, slmgr /rearm via scheduled task. YMMV but mine has been stable for two years now. Take it with a grain of salt though, I would not put anything critical on it. Who else is still on this treadmill? Just curious how long people have stretched it.

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olespete

Member

Trust No One

#2

Three years here. Maybe four. Lost count honestly. Had one fail after 168 days once. Now I rearm at 140 just to be safe. The script is. Well it is not pretty but it works. Powershell and prayer. You know how it is...

airgapped, encrypted, faraday'd, still worried
SO

Member

#3

I make a server up for friend with rearm chain, he is running 5 years now caramba! Not me personally but I help him maintain. He has production database there, I tell him is risk but he does not listen. I think longest I see. Regards

moebig

Member

RAID is not backup

#4

Wesh my friend le server حلو if it works incha'allah uptime forever !!! 5 years that is something !!! Me I have only 2 years on eval but I do not tell clients !!! French spacing for punctuation , you see ?

RAID 1: because paranoia pays
Richard7

Member

Pentium III Enjoyer

#5

Production database on a rearm chain? That is just asking for trouble honestly

SPARCstation 20, still serving HTTP
ian3

Member

refugee from big host

#6

I had a rearm fail at 160 days once, not fun

Richard7

Member

Pentium III Enjoyer

6 #7

ian3 said:
I had a rearm fail at 160 days once, not fun

Same happened to me except I was on holiday. Came back to a server that had been down for four days because the eval had expired and nobody else knew the local admin password. That was the end of my rearm experiments.

SPARCstation 20, still serving HTTP
larryjeong

Member

#8

I ran the treadmill for about eight months on a $3/mo KVM in Dallas. The host did not care what I installed. Eventually I just bought a proper license from a reseller, cost me like forty bucks for 2019 Essentials. Not worth the stress anymore.

$3/year. 128MB RAM. Pure happiness.
olespete

Member

Trust No One

#9

larryjeong said:
Three years here. Maybe four.

I am the same person who posted this but I want to add: the real problem is not the rearm failing. It is that you cannot patch properly. Some updates refuse to install on eval. You are running unpatched Windows Server and telling yourself it is fine.

airgapped, encrypted, faraday'd, still worried
moebig

Member

RAID is not backup

2 #10

olespete said:
Wesh my friend le server حلو if it works incha'allah uptime forever !!!

You see my friend , in Morocco we have proverb: cheap man pays twice. I learn this with hosting. But still I do the rearm hahaha. Cannot help myself.

RAID 1: because paranoia pays

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