2/27/24, 7:06 PM Reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2016 and 2019 - Virtualization Howto

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Windows Server 2019

Reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2016 and 2019

 Brandon Lee • October 13, 2020  4 minutes read

 Confirm-deletion-of-the-timebomb-key-in-the-registry

If you have a home lab environment or another lab where you continually test various
solutions, licensing, and trial expiration is a challenge that you constantly tend to run
into. It is just part of the fun of lab environments. While most trials are fairly “hard and
fast” and don’t allow you to reset the trial expiration, if you work with Microsoft Windows
Server and Remote Desktop Services (RDS), there is a “hack” that allows you to effectively
reset the expiration of Remote Desktop Services grace period where you can essentially
rewind the clock on your RDS licensing if you are making use of this role inside your lab
environment. I am using Windows Server 2019 for my Windows workloads in my lab

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environment. In this post, I will show how to reset 120 day RDS licensing Grace period on
2016 and 2019 Windows Server. Let’s see.

Remote Desktop Services RDS Licensing

When you install Windows Server 2016 or 2019 as with previous Windows versions, you
get the normal ability to have the two sessions you generally have available for
administering.

However, when you install the true Remote Desktop Services role, you can have multiple
sessions on your server. This is similar to the legacy Terminal Server role in previous
versions of windows.

Production vs testing purposes

Typically in a production environment, you will have remote desktop license servers that
house the client access licenses and then you will have multiple session host server
instances configured for hosting user sessions.

When you install the role, by default, you have a 120-day grace period that Microsoft
gives you to license the server for use as an RDS installation properly. This is
accomplished by configuring remote desktop license servers with client access licenses. If
you are using a server in a lab environment, most likely, you are not going to license this
type of server outside of production in a testing environment, using a license server with
a remote desktop session host.

RDS grace period error message

Once the 120 day grace period has expired, you will see the following error when you
attempt to RDP to the server, referring to the licensing server needed for the proper
license past the grace period:

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Error after 120 day grace period has expired for Remote Desktop Services

You can either redeploy your Windows Server which will allow you to spin up a new 120
day grace period, or you can actually reset the grace period. If you are like me, the latter
is certainly the path of least resistance and work involved. Let’s take a look at how to
reset the 120 day RDS grace period.

You can take a closer look at the official licensing documentation for Remote Desktop
Services here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/remote/remote-desktop-
services/rds-client-access-license

Reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2016 and 2019

For resetting the 120 day grace period for the RDS role, the registry editor is your friend
and makes this process easy. Before we begin, there are a couple of disclaimers to make
here. Editing the registry can result in totally destroying a Windows system, so proceed
with any low-level registry edits with caution. Creating a quick snapshot of the Windows
virtual machine before you begin is always a good practice if you are working with a
virtual machine.

Overview of resetting the grace period

Additionally, for production systems, resetting the 120 day grace period should only be
done for systems that are not in production, as you should have proper licensing installed
for production use.

To reset the grace period, there are actually just 3 steps involved:

1. Change permissions on the RCM > GracePeriod key

2. Delete the “Timebomb” registry entry
3. Reboot the server

Now that we have level-set, once you have your snapshot or other backup created, you
need to navigate to the following key location on your RDS server:

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Computer\\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\\Control\\Terminal
Server\\RCM\\GracePeriod

Change Permissions on the RDS GracePeriod key and delete the key
Open a command prompt, and type regedit. After you have navigated to the key
documented above, right-click GracePeriod and select Permissions.

Navigate to the RDS GracePeriod key

For obvious reasons, there are no default permissions on this key for even Administrators.
So you have to first take ownership of the key before you can delete the timebomb
value. Click the Advanced button on the permissions dialog box.

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Navigate to the Advanced permissions properties

Click the Change button next to the Owner.

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Change the ownership of the registry key

Here I have selected local administrators group as the owner of the key. However, you
will want to choose whichever user/group you want to use to delete the registry key.
Select the options to replace owners and replace all child object permissions.

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User for ownership selected and set to replace permissions on child objects

Confirm the replacement of permissions on the registry key.

Confirm replacing permissions

Now that we have changed ownership on the key, we can actually set permissions
without getting permissions errors. Here I am granting administrators full control on the
key.

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Change permissions for the user you want to be able to delete the key

Now, with permissions set, right-click the timebomb value in the GracePeriod key and
Delete.

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Delete the timebomb key

Confirm the deletion of the registry entry.

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Confirm deletion of the timebomb key in the registry

Next, the only thing left to do is reboot your server. Once the server is rebooted, you can
enjoy once again having the full 120 day grace period for your RDS server in the lab
environment.

Video Overview of the Process

If you want to take a look at a video of the process, you can watch the video walkthrough
below.

Learn how to reset the 120-day Grace Period in Remote

Desktop Services
Reset 120-day RDS Grace Period

1:46 2:18

Wrapping up

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The process to reset 120 day RDS Grace period on 2016 and 2019 Windows Servers as
well as older server versions such as Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 is very
straightforward using this process to delete the timebomb registry key.

Keep in mind this is not supported and certainly not a process for running in production.
However, it is very handy for lab environments to keep from having to redeploy Windows
Server virtual machines to have a fresh 120 day grace period.

Brandon Lee
Brandon Lee is the Senior Writer, Engineer and owner at Virtualizationhowto.com and has over two
decades of experience in Information Technology. Having worked for numerous Fortune 500
companies as well as in various industries, Brandon has extensive experience in various IT segments
and is a strong advocate for open source technologies. Brandon holds many industry certifications,
loves the outdoors and spending time with family.

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11 Comments

Mark
March 17, 2023 at 9:31 pm

Thanks for this!

How often can you reset the RDS grace period?
Extending the Windows Server trial period is limited to 6 times.

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Reply

Mike W
September 12, 2023 at 10:01 am

Have you verified that 6 resets is the maximum? For Server 2022?
What if RDS feature was uninstalled and reinstalled? Would it go 120 days again?

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brandon.lee
September 12, 2023 at 10:38 am

Mike,

Honestly, I have reset it this many times, only a couple in various lab environments.
I am not sure what happens when you hit 6 or more. Is this a documented
limitation you have seen?

Brandon

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ABDULLAHIL BAKI
June 18, 2023 at 10:57 am

Does it work on server 2022??

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Chris Pierce
July 5, 2023 at 3:09 am

yes it does

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john raymon
August 24, 2023 at 10:21 pm

thank you i got it to work. I am almost done testing. just waiting for wow to install the fiber lines than i can
go live. thankyou again it did work on 2022

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brandon.lee
August 25, 2023 at 8:25 am

John,

Thanks for the comment! I’m glad the process is still working on Windows Server 2022.

Brandon

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daniel winters
September 14, 2023 at 1:01 am

you can use it as many times you want i am running a home lab wich sometimes need to be spun up and i
have resetted it 12 times already and still working.

i only need this machine 6 times and only for testing purposes.

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Raphael
October 31, 2023 at 10:48 am

Great Article, very helpful

You dont need to Reboot the Server. Just restarting Remotedesktopservices Service does the job for me

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WanpengQian
November 22, 2023 at 12:21 am

I have create a service program that will automatic remove this registerkey values.
Feel free to have a try.
github.com/WanpengQian/RRKS

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Reply

Infratech
January 23, 2024 at 12:18 pm

great master, how do I install this program? Thank you for the instruction!

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