Server Downgrade Rights

[swain90]

Morning All,

Please don't hate on the Server OS versions, things move very slow in the industry I work in and our products are validated against certain Windows operating systems making it difficult to upgrade.

We have some servers at work which have Server 2003 installed and have an OEM 2003 key attached to the case.

There's nothing physically wrong with the servers, however out latest product has been validated using Server 2008R2 which now requires us to have more Server 2008R2 machines.

I'm wanting to repurpose the old hardware and install Server 2008R2 on there, however I'm unsure which of the many different variants of Server 2019 Standard I need to purchase to allow me to downgrade.

For reference, the hardware requires Server 2008R2 Standard installed.

Thanks

Swain90

 

[swain90]

@Django x2 Added some further clarification to my post.

I'm presuming here that I'll need to purchase a copy of Server 2019 Standard which will then allow me to downgrade to Server 2008R2 Standard, however I'm not variant of Server 2019 Standard will allow me to downgrade.

I have the Server 2008R2 media and have a valid license to activate, but what I'm wanting to know is whether I can buy a retail copy of Server 2019 and that provide me with what I need to allow me to downgrade to Server 2008R2, or whether I need to a volume license copy of Server 2019 Standard etc...

 

[swain90]

Am I right in thinking I can buy this and as long each specific license is tagged to a specific machine I can buy this and install Server 2008R2 under downgrade?

P73-07788

Windows Server Standard 2019 64bit Eng Dvd 16 Core OEM

The servers we have are single CPU with 4 cores.

 

[swain90]

We're unable to procure items via ebay, amazon etc... we have to procure through an IT supplier which I doubt would be able to obtain 2K8R2 anymore, hence having to go for 2019.