How to move Terminal Services CALs from one license server to another in Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008

The documents that you must have available

Before you start to perform the procedures that are described in the following sections, you must have the paper agreement that you received when you purchased the CALs. The agreement number or the enrollment number from the agreement will be required to receive the new CAL Pack ID that is described in the "How to move the CALs" section.

How to move the CALs

To move the CALs, follow these steps.

Note After you move the CALs, you must deactivate the old license server. (See step 10.)

1. Install Terminal Services Licensing on the target server.

2. Activate the license server.
   
   For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   
   

   325869 How to activate a License Server by using Terminal Server Licensing in Windows Server 2003
   
   

3. On the new Terminal Services license server, click Start, click Administrative Tools, and then click Terminal Server Licensing.

4. In the Terminal Server Licensing snap-in, right-click the Terminal Services license server, and then click Properties. In the Installation method list, click Telephone, and then click OK.

5. Right-click the Terminal Services license server, and then click Install Licenses. The Welcome to the Terminal Server CAL Installation Wizard dialog box appears.

6. Click Next. In the Obtain Client License Key Pack dialog box, you will find the license server ID.

7. Use this license server ID to obtain a CAL Key Pack ID. To install CALs on the new license server, you must have a CAL Key Pack ID. You can receive a CAL Key Pack ID from the Microsoft Clearinghouse or by visiting the following Microsoft Web site:

   https://activate.microsoft.comTo contact the Microsoft Clearinghouse, use the following telephone number:

   1-888-571-2048
   The representative at the Microsoft Clearinghouse will give you a new CAL Key Pack ID. You can also contact Microsoft Customer Support Services at the following telephone number:

   1-800-936-3100For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
   
   

   319726 Phone numbers for Microsoft Technical Support
   
   

8. In the Obtain Client License Key Pack dialog box, type the CAL Key Pack ID (from step 7) in the Type the client license key pack ID in the boxes below field.

9. Click Next. You will receive a message that states that the CALs have been installed successfully.

10. After you verify that the new license server is functioning correctly, deactivate the old license server. To do this, uninstall the Terminal Services Licensing component on the old server.
    

Backup and license information

You should regularly back up the Terminal Services license server by using Windows Backup or a similar tool. Regular backups help protect your licensing data from accidental loss if the system experiences hardware or storage failure. When you back up a Terminal Services license server, back up both the system state data and the folder in which the Terminal Services license server is installed. By doing this, you make sure that data in both the registry and the Terminal Services license server database is backed up.

If you restore the system state data and the database to the original Terminal Services license server, any unissued licenses are restored correctly, assuming you have not replaced the operating system on the computer. If you have replaced the operating system, any unissued licenses are not restored, and an event that provides the unissued license count is logged in the System log. You can still restore the unissued licenses by using the telephone activation option in the Terminal Services License Manager tool. To switch to the telephone activation option, right-click the server in Terminal Services License Manager, and then click Properties.