TERMINAL SERVICES UNLIMITED

VER: 1.1

Frane Borozan

frane@admin-pains.com

UNLIMITED TERMINAL SERVICES CONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES 2000 AND 2003

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CONTENTS
1. 2. 3. 4.
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 2 UNLIMITED TERMINAL SERVICES CONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS 2000 ................. 3 UNLIMITED TERMINAL SERVICES CONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS 2003 ................. 5 GENERATING PERMANENT LICENSES 2000, 2003 & 2008 .................................. 7

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1. INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Terminal Services Unlimited. This document aims to help you get Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 terminal services unlimited connections at unlimited time. Please note that this is not crack for windows or anythig like that. Nevertheless, to completely prepare your server, I recommend that you begin by taking the step by step as it is covered in this document. I also recommend that you install, configure terminal services and terminal services licensing for running. I have tested this solution with clients Windows 2000 Pro, Windows XP, Windows 2000 Server, various Windows 2003 servers and PocketPC and also I have feedback that this is also working on thin clients.

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2. UNLIMITED TERMINAL SERVICES CONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS 2000

Acording to Microsoft it is not ilegal to use terminal server with temporary licenses. There is a paragraph that says: " There is no provision in the EULA for accessing a terminal server without the appropriate licenses". Get back on my site if you are interested and read paragraph in EULA that is covering this question. Note that I have tested this mode to work only in licensing per device. In order to bypass this evaluation period to unlimited licence follow next steps: 1. SERVER - Stop the terminal license server in services 2. SERVER - Go to the %systemroot%\windows\system32\lserver\ 3. SERVER - Backup both files edb.chk and TLSLic.edb in case method fails (microsoft holds licence information database in these files) 4. SERVER - Delete both files edb.chk and TLSLic.edb from the directory 5. CLIENT - Go the client that has expired terminal evaluation period 6. CLIENT - Run registry editor 7. CLIENT - Go to the following key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\" 8. CLIENT - Note there are two subkey named "Store" and "HardwareID" 9. CLIENT - Delete both subkeys 10. DO NOT connect yet to the terminal server with the client! 11. SERVER - Change the date on the server to lets say year 2014 (this is used to change expiration day so you don't need to repeat following steps every 90 days) 12. SERVER - Start the terminal licensing service 13. CLIENT - Connect the client to the server 14. CLIENT - Note that windows recreated new key in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\". This new key holds new expiration date on year what you choose to licence expire. 15. SERVER - Go to the Terminal server licensing in Administrative Tools 16. SERVER - Note that temporary licence now expires on year 2014. Issue date is also at year 2014 but information is not importat for clients to function. Server just saves expiration date on client. 17. SERVER - Return date on server to today date 18. You have Terminal Licence that expires at date that is long in future :)

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Note that this day hack works only when date is changed on server. It means that client will get "long" expiration date only if date on server is changed. I recommend that you change date on server and leave it for few days, or how long is needed for all clients to connect to server. When all clients connect in few days return date on server to today and all clients will have date that will expire in 10 or 15 years or whatever year you choose.

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3. UNLIMITED TERMINAL SERVICES CONNECTIONS IN WINDOWS 2003

To maximize Windows 2003 evaluation, do not deploy a license server until the grace period is about to expire. For Windows Server 2003, you receive a maximum of 210 days for evaluation (a grace period of 120 days plus a temporary token of 90 days). For Microsoft Windows 2000, you receive maximum of 180 days for evaluation (a grace period of 90 days plus a temporary token of 90 days). Recreating Licence database in Windows 2003 is quite similar to the Windows Server 2000 but there is single step that is required to reset licence. If you try windows 2000 steps on windows 2003 note that server would not recreate database, it will serve you old expired database. Note that I have tested this mode to work only in licensing per device. In order to bypass this evaluation period to unlimited licence follow next steps: 1. SERVER - Stop the terminal license server in services 2. SERVER - Go to the %systemroot%\windows\system32\lserver\ 3. SERVER - Backup both files edb.chk and TLSLic.edb in case method fails (microsoft holds licence information database in these files) 4. SERVER - Delete both files edb.chk and TLSLic.edb from the directory 5. SERVER - Run registry editor 6. SERVER - Go to the following key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\" 7. SERVER - Note there is subkey named "Parameters" 8. SERVER - Delete subkey (I have noticed that if I don't delete this key license server returns old database) 9. CLIENT - Go the client that has expired terminal evaluation period 10. CLIENT - Run registry editor 11. CLIENT - Go to the following key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\" 12. CLIENT - Note there are two subkeys named "Store" and "HardwareID" 13. CLIENT - Delete both subkeys 14. DO NOT connect yet to the terminal server with the client! 15. SERVER - Change the date on the server to lets say year 2014 (this is used to change expiration day so you don't need to repeat following steps every 90 days) 16. SERVER - Start the terminal licensing service 17. CLIENT - Connect the client to the server

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18. CLIENT - Note that windows recreated new key in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing\". This new key holds new expiration date on year what you choose to licence expire. 19. SERVER - Go to the Terminal server licensing in Administrative Tools 20. SERVER - Note that temporary licence now expires on year 2014. Issue date is also at year 2014 but information is not importat for clients to function. Server just saves expiration date on client. 21. SERVER - Return date on server to today date 22. You have Terminal Licence that expires at date that is long in future :) Note that this day hack works only when date is changed on server. It means that client will get "long" expiration date only if date on server is changed. I recommend that you change date on server and leave it for few days, or how long is needed for all clients to connect to server. When all clients connect in few days return date on server to today and all clients will have date that will expire in 10 or 15 years or whatever year you choose.

For any extra info please contact me at frane@admin-pains.com

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4. GENERATING PERMANENT LICENSES 2000, 2003 & 2008

Please note to use these licenses only for educational and testing use. For generating permament licenses please follow these steps: 1. SERVER Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs > Add or Remove Windows Components'. Add "Terminal Server" & Terminal Server Licensing" Default licensing mode is per device as we will need to for actiivation 2. SERVER Start Terminal Server Licensing (Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services >Terminal Server Licensing) if it is not started 3. SERVER Go to the Terminal Server Licensing, Right-click on Terminal Server > Properties > Installation Method: Select Installation Method "Web Browser" 4. SERVER Go to next tab "Required Information". Fill all 4 fields with some none important information. Write somewhere TS ID on the bottom of that window 5. SERVER Right-click on Terminal Server and select Activate Server. Terminal Server License Server Activation Wizard will start. Read > press next 6. SERVER Select activation method "Web Browser" press next 7. WEB BROWSER Go to https://activate.microsoft.com/ to get license server ID 8. WEB BROWSER Select "Activate a license server" press next 9. WEB BROWSER Fill out required fields with some information that makes sense. Choose country USA. Use Product ID use from step 6, press next on the bottom 10. WEB BROWSER Press next one more time on the bottom 11. WEB BROWSER If you did every thing right then you gonna get license server ID key (enter this information in your terminal server activation window), but do not close window we will need this for client access licenses (CALs). If everything is OK you will now have Terminal Server License Server Activated. 12. WEB BROWSER Next in the "Do you wish to install license tokens at this time?" select "Yes" 13. WEB BROWSER Fill out the required fields on the Microsoft web page . License Server ID get from Terminal Server CAL Installation Wizard. Important is to set License Program to "Other agreement". 14. WEB BROWSER Choose Product Type Windows 2003 Terminal server Per Device CAL, Fill quantity (I put around 100) and Agreement Number 6565792 15. WEB BROWSER Press next once more on the bottom 16. WEB BROWSER you are gonna get your license key pack ID what you need to insert to Terminal Server CAL Installation Wizard > close window do not press finish, but first write down license key pack ID 17. SERVER Insert license key pack ID into your server and finish wizard

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That should be it you should have fully activated terminal server and terminal CAL. For Windows 2008 steps are the same as for Windows 2003 just in the step 14 do not choose windows 2003 per device CALs, choose windows 2008 per device CALs IF you have any problems with this HOWTO or any other questions please free to contact me at frane@admin-pains.com and I will gladly try to help you.

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