To Renew a Server Licensor Certificate
Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2
To perform this procedure, you must be logged on locally to the administration Web site with a domain user account that is a member of the Administrators group. As a security best practice, consider using Run as to perform this procedure.
If you have selected to use Offline renewal and are using a computer that has an enhanced browser security configuration, such as a computer running Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, Windows XP with Service Pack 2, or firstref_vista, to connect to the Internet and request a server licensor certificate, make sure to add the URL of the Microsoft Enrollment Service Web site to the Trusted Sites zone to allow the download of the server licensor certificate. This URL is https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=25828.
If you are using the Offline enrollment process, make sure that the computer you use to submit the enrollment request to the Microsoft Enrollment Service has the GTE Cyber Trust Root CA installed in its certificate store. This certification authority is trusted by default on machines running Windows Server 2003. If the computer is running another version of Windows, you can trust this CA by installing the latest certificate updates from Windows Update.
Renewing a Server Licensor Certificate
To Renew a Server Licensor Certificate
Log on to computer with a user account that is a member of the local Administrators group.
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Windows RMS, and then click Windows RMS Administration to open the Global Administration page.
Next to the Web site on which you want to renew a certificate, click Administer RMS on this Web site.
On the Administration page, in the Cluster resources area, click the Renew button. The Renew dialog box opens.
If your server is connected to the Internet, select the Online option and click Renew to automatically renew your server licensor certificate.
If your server is not connected to the Internet, select the Offline option and then click the Export button. The File Download dialog box appears.
Click Save. The Save as dialog box appears.
Note
In the File Download dialog box, do not click Open. If you click Open an error message will be displayed and the enrollment request file will not be saved.
Click Save to export the renewal request to a file. By default, the file will be saved on your desktop and named Server_nameRenewalRequest.xml, where server_name is replaced with the name of your RMS server. You can save the file in a different location by choosing the location you want from the Save in drop-down menu. You can also change the file name from the default by typing a new entry in File name.
Once you have saved the renewal request file, the Download complete dialog box will appear. You can click Open to view the XML code in the file, but do not make any changes to the file. To open the folder that the file is stored in, click Open folder. Click Close if you are done looking at the file and verifying its location.
Transport the renewal request file from your server to a computer that can connect to the Internet and then navigate to the Microsoft Enrollment Service Web site https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=25828.
Follow the instructions on the Web site to obtain a server licensor certificate.
Transport the server licensor certificate back to this server in the root cluster.
In the Cluster resources area, click Renew. The Renew dialog box opens.
In the Renew dialog box, click the Browse button and locate the server licensor certificate you downloaded and then click the Import button.
Click Yes to confirm that you want to import this certificate.
Once the server licensor certificate has been successfully renewed, the Cluster resources area will be updated to display the new expiration date of the server licensor certificate.
For more information about renewing server licensor certificates, see "Managing Server Licensor Certificates" earlier in this subject.