This guide will show you how to renew RDS grace period on your hosts. Microsoft gives you 120 days grace period on RDS. I would say that it would be enough to run a pilot or a PoC. I would only encourage everyone to purchase licenses for your environment and only use this article as a last option.
To renew RDS grace period, you need to find the following registry key and delete it.
“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
Terminal Server\RCM\GracePeriod”
Before you can delete the registry key, you need to change ownership. You can do that by following these steps:
- Right-Click on the key.
- Click on “Permissions”.
- Click on “Advanced”.
- Click on “Owner”.
- Select “Administrators”.
- Click on “Apply”
You can now delete the key. Reboot the server and you now have a new grace period.
Hi, the key in question no longer seems to exist on newer Server 2016 versions.
Do you have a workaround?
Still exists in Server 2019…
No, where is it in Server 2019 ?
Thank you for your comment.
The registry key can be found in the same registry path as Windows Server 2016. Make sure that you have installed the RDS roles on the host.
Can confirm it does not exist in 2019 build 17763.1282
It does exist and work on Server 2019 Standard build 17763.1637
Thank you, for sharing this article. You save my life.