Share via


What Can Happen When You Try to Convert a Standard SharePoint 2010 Farm to Enterprise

I was investigating on what exactly are the differences between a SharePoint farm with Standard CAL and Enterprise CAL. And even more, with/without Office Web Apps. So first I got my single server installation built, with Office Web Apps, and took several screenshots. Then I go ahead to input my Enterprise key in Convert License Type page.

What? The input control is disabled? Current License shows I have SharePoint Server with Standard Client Access License, it’s not a trial, so it’s not my key problem.

snap0149

When move the mouse to the input box, it shows a default cursor, instead of a text cursor, which means it is disabled. I tried inside and outside the VM, different browsers, nothing really help.

snap0150

I don’t have the time to troubleshoot what the hell happened, so here’s the trick:

Get your IE8 developer tool out, and point it to the disabled input box.

snap0151

Now you can have the line highlighted. Hmm, disabled=”disabled”. Let’s change it to trick the page.

snap0152

I changed the name “disabled” to something that doesn’t make sense. I guess people can have a better idea for this but anyway.

snap0153

Now I can input my Enterprise license key to the box. Wait, OK button is still disabled. Time for the same trick…

snap0154

After Ok button is enabled, click on it, the feature for Enterprise CAL now can be unlocked without any problem.

snap0155

I don’t know what caused the original problem. But anyway, this is a quick way to have a workaround.

Note: this is not for production use. If you got the same issue on a production farm, better call support.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 17, 2011
    Do you know if it's only happenning to Single Server Farm installation? Maybe it's because Enterprise CAL is not required on a Single Server Farm installation scenario? (just a guess) Allen

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2011
    @Allen: I think this is a bug, or a design issue. By looking into the source code this scenario is covered. Not sure why the Standard Alone has this problem.

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2011
    Or simply follow this method I used :) www.allaboutmoss.com/.../sharepoint-2010-convert-license-type

  • Anonymous
    September 13, 2011
    Yeah, nice 404 error Shoban.

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2011
    Sorry Guys, Blog was down. Please check now.

  • Anonymous
    December 11, 2013
    Hi, Thank you for the great post. I was able to enter the key but I get the following error: "This product key cannot be used to convert to . " I have SharePoint 2013 enterprise edition and Project server 2013. I'm 100% sure the problem is not with the key. Any suggestions?? thanks.

  • Anonymous
    April 15, 2014
    I have the same problem as Omar Jaber; "This produce key cannot be used to convert to ." (The end of the sentence is blank.) Any idea what this means? Thanks

  • Anonymous
    May 21, 2014
    Hats off to u Jie Li.. :). Good thinking