According to this link and this one, the attributes you mention were first introduced with Windows Server 2008; so, yes, upgrading the AD schema to 2008 level should fix your problem.
It's a totally safe operation, even if you don't plan to add any 2008 DC to the domain any time soon. Just ensure all your DCs are online, replication is properly working, the DC holding the Schema Master role is accessible and you have Enterprise Admin and Schema Admin rights.
BTW, you should run ADPREP on one of your existing 2003 domain controllers, not on a 2008 member server.
I've found myself in the same scenario as you. Deploying Remote Desktop on a standalone Server 2012 box is quite hard, because the guys at Microsoft don't let you run this on a domain-less network and if you do, you can't manage all the settings.
So, you can install a workgroup-based-box and get the Remote Desktop roles working on it. We need also to install Remote Desktop Licensing features on the same machine. But, once at this point, even if you have proper RDS CALs installed on the server, when the user logs in, receives the message that the trial period is on.
I've finally managed to get it working, at least something like the good-old Terminal Services we used to know. That's working for me on two production machines of small clients who need RDS but can't afford having two servers on their network.
Here we go:
Install the Remote Desktop Licensing and the Remote Desktop Session Host role services using the following steps:
- Open Server Manager
- Click on Manage and select Add Roles and Features
- Select Role-based or Feature-based installation
- Under Remote Desktop Services, choose Remote Desktop Licensing and Remote Desktop Session Host role services.
- Proceed with installation
Add the License Server to Terminal Server License Servers group and restart the Remote Desktop service (you can use licmgr.exe
)
Add the licenses to the license server.
Configure the Remote Desktop Session Host role with to use the local Remote Desktop Licensing server. Follow these steps:
- Open PowerShell as administrator
- Type the following command on the PS prompt and press Enter:
$obj = gwmi -namespace "Root/CIMV2/TerminalServices" Win32_TerminalServiceSetting
Run the following command to set the licensing mode (Note: Value = 2 for Per device, Value = 4 for Per User, we use per-user)
$obj.ChangeMode(4)
Run the following command to replace the machine name with License Server (mylicenseserver
is the name of your server):
$obj.SetSpecifiedLicenseServerList("mylicenseserver")
Run the following command to verify the settings that are configured using above mentioned steps:
$obj.GetSpecifiedLicenseServerList()
You should see the server name in the output.
Once done this, reboot the system and log in with any user (if using a workgroup, you know your users must be part of the Remote Desktop Users
) and the trial period message will dissapear.
Source of all this mess: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2833839
Managing with Powershell
There are a few things you can manage with Powershell
. To see the commands try:
import-module RemoteDesktop
get-command -module RemoteDesktop
There is a list of commands you can execute via Powershell to manage your box. However, I've tried a few but some of them require you to have some extra features installed, that can't be deployed on the scenario we are talking about.
If none of the above works for you, there is a way to reset the grace period to the initial 120 days. Of course, I don't recommend doing this, as the user will keep noticing the message. Of course, you'll need to purchase proper licenses.
To reset the counter, just delete this registry key:
HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\RCM\Grace Period
Of course, you'll need extra-privileges to do that, executing regedit
as administrator will not work. Try this:
- Get PSEXEC
- Start a cmd as administrator
- run
psexec -s -i regedit.exe
- delete the desired key
- reboot
Hope some of this works for you. If you do some advances with Powershell and RDS, let us know.
Best Answer
I was actually troubleshooting a different issue today and
dcdiag
threw this interesting tidbit up:I've added the licensing server into the group in the child domain, and it looks like everything is back to consuming licences again.