Eval License Expired

[sbrousse]

Have a client with ESX3.5 and they had an eval license installed on their server. The license expired and now all hosts are disconnected from the vc host. Got a new license from VMware but the license can't be read by the license service. Have tried several different licenses but none of them are read correctly by the license service.

Is the problem a result of the license expiring? I also noticed that the VMware license service will not stay on in the services.msc. I started the service and it immediately turns off.

Thanks

SB

[weinstein5]

Is this a new license? More than likely you will need to downgrade it since VMware is only shipping vSPhere licenses - ESX 4 not ESX 3.5 license -

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[sbrousse]

This is a new license. Its an eval license. The client wants the capability of vsphere advanced but isn't ready to go to vsphere yet. So vmware was taking a vsphere advanced license and downgrading it to 3.5 for us. That way wehave the capability without actually having vsphere. We're justing using the eval until the permanent gets here

SB

[Troy_Clavell]

you installed the new .lic file into your license server? I would also restart the license server service and probably restart the vCenter server service. You may also want to restart the management agents of your ESXi Hosts

http://vm-help.com/esx/esx3i/ESXi_restart_agents.php

[Erik_Zandboer · Accepted solution]

The ESX license server is a pretty nasty thing from time to time. Once it works it will never stop again, but in this kind of situation it can be quite troublesome. If all else fails, simply uninstall the license service, reboot and then reinstall the license server. It is done within 5 minutes, and the installer will ask for the LIC file and put it in the right place for you.

Sometimes it is just easier to reinstall instead of troubleshooting it for half a day 🙂


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