I'm currently running WSE 2016 + Server 2016 Standard & Exchange 2016, all three running in evaluation mode at the moment. Evaluation time is running down and I must activate what I have or migrate to 2019 or later. I'm not ready, at this point to migrate, so I'm looking for a way to activate what I have.
Can I buy retail versions of 2019 WSE, Server Standard and Exchange and use downgrade rights to activate my current 2016 evaluations? Do I need 2016 product keys or can I use the 2019 keys. Or, is there a better approach outside of a migration?
Thanks
Are both servers virtualized? If that is the case you should buy Windows Server 2019 Standard. With that you can run one Hyper-V Host and two VM's. Possibly you can get 2016 downgrade rights with 2019 but as this gets really old I doubt you can still buy that.
I have not heard from downgrade rights for Exchange Server 2019 to 2016 but your vendor should know that.
Why are you running evaluation versions in a production environment?
Both servers are virtualized but on ESXi not Hyper-V. Can I run two VMs on VMWare if I buy one Server 2019 Standard license or does Microsoft limit this licensing to Hyper-V?
It's only a pseudo production environment as it's a home lab, so I can afford some down time. How about an upgrade-in-place to 2019? Is that an option considering the age of 2016, hassle to get downgrade rights, and some downtime is acceptable?
You must run it on Hyper-V to get the benefit. Inplace upgrade of domain controller is a bad idea and the Exchange Server can never be upgraded.