License for ESXi did not work ???

[AT2]

I am trying to license a standalone ESXi instance for ESXi 7.0 Standard. We purchased 

License key(s) for VMware vSphere 8 Standard for 1 processor (VS8-STD-C)

and downgraded to 7. Yet, when trying to apply that license, I get "Please provide a valid license key".

What am I doing wrong??? Do I need a different license?

[RajeevVCP4]

How you down grade from 8 to 7

you can remove or edit license.cfg file 

1. Login to the HOST via SSH or Shell
2. Remove /etc/vmware/license.cfg
3. Copy /etc/vmware/.#license.cfg to /etc/vmware/license.cfg
4. Restart the vpxa service

Or simply copy the code below and paste it into your SSH session.

rm -r /etc/vmware/license.cfg
cp /etc/vmware/.#license.cfg /etc/vmware/license.cfg
/etc/init.d/vpxa restart

[a_p_]

Did you downgrade the ESXi license to a v7.x license in your Customer Connect portal, and can you confirm that the new license key has sufficient capacity to cover the number of sockets in the ESXi 7.0 host?

André

[AT2]

And it's resolved now

Just took time to do the actual downgrade.

I did not pay attention that it said - downgrade in progress.

So, eventually it issued a new license key, and that one worked absolutely fine.