To activate your Windows server trial which gives you 180 days:

1. Start -> Right Click (My Computer).
2. Click "Activate Windows now"

To renew your license for 180 days (can be done 6 times):

1. Start -> Type this command:
2. slmgr.vbs -rearm
3. Wait a few minutes until it says it is successful (unless you get that message it has not worked or been done)
4. Restart

Note that if you don't activate your Windows on time each hour it will log you off and physically power itself down (a big pain for servers in a datacenter or remote location of any sort).

This works on basically all Windows server versions including 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019 Server.

How To Check License Status and Expiration

slmgr /dlv

Once you have done the 6 times of re-arming you must re-install Windows.

You'll get this error once you have exceeded the limit:

Error: 0xC004D307 The maximum allowed number of re-arms has been exceeded. You must re-install the OS before trying to re-arm again.

You can disable the re-arm feature in the registry:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\SkipRearm

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