Upgrade SQL Server version from an expired instance

Daniel SHEN 5 Reputation points
2023-01-30T03:14:14.1466667+00:00

I have an expired SQL Server 2012 instance and want to recover data in this instance. SQL 2012 is no longer supported thus I can't purchase a license anymore. However my organization has license for SQL 2016, thus I tried to do an in-place upgrade on that 2012 instance. The setup fails at Service Health Check due to the instance isn't able to start now. I've also tried SkipRules parameter in setup.exe but didn't work. I can't change the system time on this server.

Please advise is there a way for me to achieve this upgrade now? Thanks!

SQL Server
SQL Server
A family of Microsoft relational database management and analysis systems for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.
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  1. Daniel SHEN 5 Reputation points
    2023-01-31T06:25:00.7766667+00:00

    I eventually solved this via the silent sql server installer with SkipRules parameters, a whole lot of them:)

    /QS /ACTION=UPGRADE /InstanceName=MSSQL2012 /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /SKIPRULES= Engine_SqlEngineHealthCheck Engine_OnlySupportedFeaturesUsedCheckSystem Engine_OnlySupportedFeaturesUsedCheckUser Engine_SqlEngineRestartCheck EditionUpgradeMatrixCheck RebootRequiredCheck /IAcceptSQLServerLicenseTerms

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  2. Olaf Helper 45,881 Reputation points
    2023-01-30T08:48:32.19+00:00

    The setup fails at Service Health Check

    Please review installation log file for more details about the issue, see View and Read SQL Server Setup Log Files

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  3. Erland Sommarskog 116.5K Reputation points MVP
    2023-01-30T22:30:39.37+00:00

    If you only need to access the databases, you can install a new instance and attach the databases to these instance.

    To recover logins and jobs, you need to work a little harder, although you could attach master and msdb as user databases on the new instance.

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