How to upgrade a Microsoft Dynamics CRM trial key

Thanks to a nice email from co-worker Jeff it saves me time to write it myself and I am just copy and pasting his text onhere. We get many questions on howto upgrade from a trialkey to a production keycode. Below is the procedure to follow.

  1. Go to Start – Programs – Microsoft CRM – Deployment Manager on the CRM Server
  2. In Deployment Manager expand the License Manager folder on the left side pane
  3. Highlight the correct Licenses under the License Manager folder and you should see the Trial Version keys listed in the right hand pane
  4. Right click on the Trial Version license keys and choose Upgrade Licenses
  5. Enter your production keys as prompted

This should take care of the upgrade of keys. The only time I have seen issues myself is if the existing keys are something like MSDN keys instead of the Trial Version keys. MSDN keys cannot be upgraded!

The other thing to watch for is if the customer had originally installed 3.0 Professional Trial Version keys and now is trying to upgrade to 3.0 Small Business Edition production keys. The matrix for what can be upgraded is listed below.

CRM 3.0 SBE Trial Keys -> CRM 3.0 SBE production keys
CRM 3.0 SBE Trial Keys -> CRM 3.0 Pro production keys
CRM 3.0 Pro Trial Keys -> CRM 3.0 Pro production keys