Can SBS 2008 Standard Be Upgraded to Premium?

[TheBeagle]

I bought SBS Standard 2008 and now I believe that I will also need the SQL Server function of Premium. Can I upgrade/migrate to Premium 2008? If so, how do I do it?

Well, since I bought the full retail version from Newegg.com, and they don't provide ANY technical support, I can't do that. That's why I'm asking the question here, in hopes of obtaining a straight answer.

[Russ \(www.SBITS.Biz\)]

If you ask me I’ll not recommend you Retail for Office 2007 now that SBS2008 does not have Outlook. Better get office 2007 with SA and you can have your workers who work from home or have multiple PC's use the same license. You can call an IT person to fix this.

[TheBeagle]

Thanks for the reply. However, the site you referred me to was for SBS 2003. I bought SBS 2008 Standard Edition, and I would like to migrate to SBS 2008 Premium. I have been told that there IS a way to do that, but I can't find any information on that migration process. Thanks for any help you could offer for SBS 2008.

[Lindberg]

If I’m not wrong you know that SBS 2008 Premium is exactly the same as SBS 2003. The only difference is it has the addition of an additional copy and license for Windows Server 2008 and a copy of SQL Standard For Small Business. Isn’t it exactly the same as SQL Standard? However the pricing and CALs will be different but if you acquire another copy of Server and SQL with appropriate licenses, you have a DIY copy of SBS 2008 Premium.

[Toby-Martin]

Hello TheBeagle, I’ll recommend you to just go through these Microsoft KBs. I’m sure it will help you out.

Web Access to Newsgroup SBS2008
https://connect.microsoft.com/sbs08/...i/default.aspx

Web Access to Newsgroup EBS2008
https://connect.microsoft.com/ebs08/...i/default.aspx

Also in order to gain groups via NNTP you will first of all need to set up an access password as mentioned here https://connect.microsoft.com/cougar...community.aspx. After doing this wait for four hours and you can click on the links below and configure your NNTP Reader

[TheBeagle]

I have run across this interesting web site: http://www.microsoft.com/wess/en/us/...-overview.aspx. The distilled information seems to strongly suggest that once you register your SBS 2008 Standard Edition Serial Number, and M$ validates that number, that you can then purchase the remainder of the SBS 2008 Premium software package directly from M$, with some sort of discount for the price that you've already paid for the Standard Edition. However, the details are a bit cryptic and not well explained. If someone has some further information on just how all of this works out, I'd sure like to know.

[adamc]

My question is: Do you have to setup SBS Premium from scratch and migrate everything from original Standard installation or can you just run the Windows Server 2008 w/SQL alongside your existing SBS Standard installation?

Microsoft Ask Partner helpline told me that you cannot use the original server.....I suspect this is a licensing/legal necessity and not a technical requirement.

I do not intend to run 2 SBS machines side by side; 1. Because you can't, 2. Because it breaks the terms of the upgrade agreement. However, its not much of an upgrade if you have to swing migrate between installations as this is a time consuming and consequently expensive procedure.

Your thoughts?