Evaluation Edition

What’s the issue?

SQL Server Evaluation Edition is a free, fully-featured version equivalent to Enterprise Edition, intended for testing and evaluation purposes. It runs for 180 days from installation, after which the SQL Server service shuts down and will not restart. Evaluation Edition is often left in place unintentionally when a server is built quickly for a project and the license upgrade is never completed.

Why is this a problem?

When the 180-day trial expires, SQL Server stops and all databases hosted on the instance become inaccessible — causing an unplanned outage that can catch teams by surprise if no one is tracking the expiration date. Evaluation Edition is also not licensed for production use, creating a compliance risk if discovered during an audit. Because an instance found running Evaluation Edition is essentially on a countdown to failure, the longer it persists the greater the risk of an unexpected outage.

What should you do about this?

Confirm the edition by running SELECT @@VERSION or checking SERVERPROPERTY(‘Edition’). Perform an in-place Edition Upgrade by running the SQL Server installer, selecting Maintenance > Edition Upgrade, and entering a valid product key. Restart the SQL Server service after the upgrade completes, then verify the new edition.

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