From time to time it becomes necessary to regenerate temporary terminal server licenses. Whether it be a genuine error which is preventing you from using temporary licenses or the fact that someone “forgot” to purchase TSCALS within the grace period allowed by Microsoft.
In my experience the below will fix 99.9% of problems surrounding temporary licenses and let you get back up and running with enough time to source some legitimate TSCALS.
*Note: These only apply to temporary licenses. If you are running a system with permanent TSCALS make sure you fully back your licenses up before doing this. If you don’t you will have to call the Microsoft Clearing House to get your TSCALS back.
On the client:
Start up regedit.exe. Drill down to HKEY_LM\Software\Microsoft\MSLicensing and delete this whole key.
On the server itself:
Go to Control Panel, Administritive tools, Services manager.
STOP Terminal Server Licensing Manager Service.
Delete contents of %systemroot%\system32\Lserver directory.
RESTART Terminal Server Licensing Manager Service.
As an absolute final resort (on the server):
Caution:Incorrectly editing the registry may severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on the computer.
To set a preferred license server by using the registry (on Windows Server 2003)
On the license server, open Registry Editor. To open Registry Editor, click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate, and then click, the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\
CurrentControlSet\Services\
TermService\Parameters
On the Edit menu, point to New, click Key, and then type LicenseServers to name the new key.
Locate, and then click, the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet
\Services\TermService\Parameters
\LicenseServers
On the Edit menu, point to New, click Key, and then type ServerNamewhere ServerName is one of the following:
– The FQDN of the server (for example, Server1.contoso.com)
– The NetBIOS name of the server(for example, Server1)
– The IP address of the server (for example, 206.73.118.1)