SQL Server 2019 – Upgrade from Enterprise Evaluation to Developer

sql serversql-server-2019

Someone installed Enterprise Evaluation on our development server which is about to expire. I wanted to do edition upgrade through the Installation Center but I got an error:

Rule "SQL Server 2019 edition upgrade" failed.

The selected Sql Server instance does not meet upgrade matrix
reuqirements. The source Enterprise edition upgrading from and the
target Developer edition upgrading to is not allowed.

According to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/database-engine/install-windows/supported-version-and-edition-upgrades-version-15?view=sql-server-ver15

Upgrade from SQL Server 2019 (15.x) Evaluation Enterprise** to SQL Server 2019 (15.x) Developer should be supported. It is not a clustered instance.

SELECT @@VERSION;

Microsoft SQL Server 2019 (RTM-CU11) (KB5003249) – 15.0.4138.2 (X64)
May 27 2021 17:34:14
Copyright (C) 2019 Microsoft Corporation
Enterprise Edition (64-bit) on Windows Server 2016 Datacenter 10.0 (Build 14393: ) (Hypervisor)

Best Answer

Your error message doesn't match the title of your question.

Your error message refers to upgrading Enterprise Edition to Developer Edition. And that's not listed as a valid upgrade/conversion path in the linked page.

The allowed path you seem to be looking at is Enterprise Evaluation --> Developer.

Based on the error message, and the output of your SELECT @@VERSION, you are running Enterprise Edition, and that's not eligible for an in-place conversion to Developer Edition.

To move from Enterprise Edition to Developer Edition, you'll need to uninstall and do a fresh install -- taking backups first as appropriate. Or even better, do a fresh install on a new server, so you can still refer to your existing instance in case of any problems. There are several articles elsewhere discussing the pros and cons.