Windows 2008 Standard R2 Questions

nasu

Hi guys,
I have a few questions. I am planning to purchase used(never opened never activated)4 or 5 RETAIL Standard SP1 p73-03883 (NOT THE R2) dvd each with 5 CALS.

Questions.
1. Would I be able to install the 64 bit and activate it and after that upgrade to R2 for free ? Is R2 as a service pack ?

2. If I buy let`s say 4 would I be able to put all those cals together get 20 basically and get away from buying cals .( I will use no more than 17 computers to a DC).

3. If it`s retail can I activated as many times I want of a different hardware platform? Or let`s say I activate it once on a single processor and then I upgrade the XEON procesors to a much faster one in 2 years of something do I have to activate it again ? keep in mind I will used the same board and chipset. All I will do is buy and use my second socket and upgrade the processor speed.

4. I know Standard 2008 R2 in it`s license gives u the opportunity to run 1 physical server and 1 virtual with Hyper V. Let`s say I want to use VMware ESXi can I install 2 VM`s with the same licence ?

Thanks a lot. I am not very familiar with Microsoft licenses and stuff.

astorrs

nasu wrote: »

1. Would I be able to install the 64 bit and activate it and after that upgrade to R2 for free ? Is R2 as a service pack ?

No R2 is a new version and you would need to purchase any upgrades.

nasu wrote: »

2. If I buy let`s say 4 would I be able to put all those cals together get 20 basically and get away from buying cals .( I will use no more than 17 computers to a DC).

Yes, assuming the CALs haven't been defined you can use them (as a group) as Per Named User or Per Named Device and you would be able to make use of 20 CALs in total.

nasu wrote: »

3. If it`s retail can I activated as many times I want of a different hardware platform? Or let`s say I activate it once on a single processor and then I upgrade the XEON procesors to a much faster one in 2 years of something do I have to activate it again ? keep in mind I will used the same board and chipset. All I will do is buy and use my second socket and upgrade the processor speed.

You can activate it as many times as necessary if all you are doing is replacing the same server. After 1 or 2 times however you would likely need to call in to Microsoft to have it reactivated over the phone (online activation will not work).

nasu wrote: »

4. I know Standard 2008 R2 in it`s license gives u the opportunity to run 1 physical server and 1 virtual with Hyper V. Let`s say I want to use VMware ESXi can I install 2 VM`s with the same licence ?

With Standard you are allowed 1 license for the host O/S and 1 license for a virtual instance. If you choose to use another host O/S you cannot reuse the host license.