Microsoft Windows server 2019 VM

Question

Hi All,

Hope you all doing well.

How to find out how many cores I have, what I need is, I have win server 2019 installed on VM 16 vCPU, I want to move it to physical HW with 2 CPUs 16 CORES each, so it is 32 CORES total, I need to check if this win server is licensed for 32 cores, or I need to buy 16 more, if the activation key is for 32 cores then I good to go,

if not I will buy for additional 16 cores, but I do not know how to find out how many cores in licensed on installed win server???

Any powershell command to know the number of cores and how much cores are licenced in my physical server, note that it's a VM.???

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

if i licence my server box with data center licence

Guests could be either DataCenter or Standard.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/automatic-vm-activation#avma-keys

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Answer 2

You'll need to check the documentation that came with your purchase. This info is not stored in the operating system.

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Answer 3

Hi DSPatrick,

Thank you for your switft.

Another question , I have another server box 20 cores, i have 2 VMs of microsoft windows server 2019 and i bought 2 licences of 16 cores , is any way to take from the second licence a 4cores and will rest 12 cores in the second license to cover the 4 cores that is not activated within the first licence.

Any powershell command to know the number of cores and how much cores are licenced in my physical server, note that it's a VM???

Answer 4

No, that wouldn't be possible to do.

Some general info

• Each host needs to be licensed.
• A minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor and a minimum of 16 core licenses is required for each server.
• Core licenses are sold in packs of two.
• Standard Edition provides rights for up to 2 Operating System Environments or Windows Servers containers with Hyper-V isolation when all physical cores in the server are licensed. For each additional 1 or 2 VMs, all the physical cores in the server must be licensed again.
• DataCenter Edition provides rights for unlimited Operating System Environments or Windows Servers containers with Hyper-V isolation when all physical cores in the server are licensed.
  https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/C/E/7CED6910-C7B2-4196-8C55-208EE0B427E2/Windows_Server_2019_licensing_datasheet_EN_US.pdf

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Answer 5

Hi DSPatrick ,

Thank you for your explication, it's very helpful.

Please if i licence my server box with data center licence and there is a vm with a std 2k19 in the server box it will be activated the STD version ???
Looking forward for your helpful reply.