Sometimes we may need a bit more than the 21 day warning that SBS gives. The following method breaches the EULA with Microsoft and should only be used for lab environments.
We will start receiving messages like “The server was shut down because it did not comply with the EULA. For more information, contact Microsoft.”
This means that either the SBS is a 2003 and its not fully promoted, or we moved the FSMO roles from a later version but never demoted it.
To disable the auto reboots or shutdown, do the following:
- Download the Process Explorer tool from SysInternals and look for the SBS Licensing Service – C:\Windows\system32\sbscrexe.exe
- Select this service and Suspend it – you should find the service greys out
- Open Regedit and expand the following key – HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SBCore
- Right-click this Key and add the Administrators group giving them Full Permission to the key (refresh this and you should see all the key entries now)
- Select the Start DWORD and change it from 2 to 4 (this sets the Disabled state)
- Open a File Explorer window and browse to the C:\Windows\system32\sbscrexe.exe file
- Right-click this and load Properties / Security
- Add the Everyone group and set the Deny permission for Full Access (should then tick the sub permissions)
- Go back to Process Explorer and now kill the sbscrexe.exe service – this should now be disabled
- Check the SBCore service via services.msc – it should have a disabled state and no longer be running