I'm running into a strange issue with Windows Server 2003 VHD.
I downloaded and installed the VHD on my work machine.
After bringing up the Virtual PC instance, I saw the message "30 day evaluation started".
But, within few mins, I saw a dialog:
"The evaluation period for this installation of Windows has expired. The system will shutdown in 1 hour".
Any idea what could be going on? I'm installing this VM on a brand new machine.
Best Answer
If the VM was already created, and you've simply copied it to a new machine, it's likely to still be counting down on it's 30 day activation limit.
You can either attempt to do a rearm of the trial period (not sure if this works in Server 2003). Follow the guide here for (Windows 7): http://windowssecrets.com/2009/08/20/01-Use-any-version-of-Windows-7-free-for-120-days
OR
An alternate work-around for this could be to disable the Time Synchronization between the virtual machine and the host machine. This way it can remain at a valid date inside the 30 day limit: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2007/11/28/disabling-time-synchronization-under-virtual-pc-2007.aspx