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MAP Toolkit Licensing Continued
Continuing yesterday’s post regarding the licensing issues I discovered using the MAP Toolkit, I was able to resolve the issue without much difficulty. The license was showing in the MAP Toolkit as developer edition. We have volume licensing so I am sure now that wrong installer was selected at the time of install because we do not use keys as they are populated by the installer.
To correct the problem, we ran the installer on the server effected and selected ‘Edition Upgrade’ and selected the media. When prompted for a product key, we had to fool the installer with some trickeration. On a separate VM, we installed SQL Server using our Enterprise media which generated a key code in the box at the same point in the installation. We then typed that key into our real installation and proceeded with the ‘Edition Update’ thus allowing the installer to realize that we were licensed for a different version. This successfully updated our edition to Enterprise as this was the license purchased for this server.
However, after stopping and restarting SQL Server to get the new version to register we noticed that the SQL Agent was failing with no errors noted in the SQL error log or the Agent log. We ran the ‘Repair’ from the installation center (shown in figure 1) to make sure that there was no corruption with the previous edition. That did not resolve the problem. When running the agent from the command line we got a different error that pointed us to the login being incorrect. Somehow running the Edition Update locked out the AD account which is used only by this service on this server so a user could not have been to blame (or should not be able to). Once unlocking that account, SQL Server Enterprise Edition was running smoothly! Enjoy!
Figure 1 – Edition Upgrade
Licensing Issues with the MAP Toolkit
Today, I ran the MAP toolkit (Microsoft Assessment and Planning) to identify our licensing structure and found an unwelcome surprise. The four new cluster nodes I installed earlier this year showed up as developer edition and not enterprise edition. Our administrator who handles the license keys, contracts, and downloads from MS gave me the license key and the ISO. When I pointed it out today, she said there was no key for an enterprise installation. That means she gave me the wrong ISO and/or she did not know it did not require a key back ten months ago. The point of this blog is not to assess blame. But to point out a pitfall in your installation through my lesson learned.
Now the real question is how do I fix it? A friend told me that I could change a registry key, but some others have indicated that I need to do an in-place upgrade. I will keep you posted. Enjoy!
SQL Swampland 