If you are using Windows Server or Windows 10 Enterprise for testing or development purposes, you may encounter a situation where your evaluation period is about to expire or has already expired. In this post, I will show you how to extend the evaluation time using a simple command.
First, you need to check the current status of your Windows license. To do this, open a command prompt as administrator and type the following command:
slmgr /dlv
This will display a dialog box with information about your license, such as the edition, activation status, remaining time, and rearm count. The rearm count is the number of times you can reset the license status of your Windows system.
If you have some days left on your evaluation and the rearm count is not 0, you can extend the evaluation time by running the following command:
slmgr /rearm
This will reset the licensing status of your system and extend the evaluation time by another 180 days. You will need to restart your system for the changes to take effect.
You can rearm your Windows evaluation up to 5 times, which means you can extend the evaluation time up to 900 days in total. However, once the rearm count reaches 0, you will not be able to extend the evaluation time any further.
If you want to activate your Windows system with a valid product key, you can use the following command:
slmgr /ipk <product key>
This will install the product key on your system and activate it online. You can also use a General Volume License Key (GVLK) if you have a KMS server in your network. You can find a list of GVLKs for different Windows editions here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/kmsclientkeys
I hope this post was helpful and you learned how to extend Windows evaluation time. 