On 2020-03-30 Dan Keizer wrote:
he's looking at trying to save money on the licence, so does anyone have 2016 or 2008 server licences on dead machines that can be repurposed? wondering if the likes of MER may as well....
What you could do is look for ancient machines that have the MS Server license and CALs already. You could then try to revive the box and make it useful, or attempt to do a fresh install and reuse the licenses on the newer box. They may transfer over and activate. 50/50 chance, maybe with some hoops. Just say your old box died and you had to replace the mobo.
Adam is correct: you'll need an OEM licensed box and most corps use the corp volume licensing, which is of no use to you. Smaller businesses will be the ones possibly selling old OEM licensed boxes. No big corp will have them.
I've looked extensively in the past at whether it's "real" that you need Win Server or whether Win X Pro will be good enough. It looks like the only thing they artificially limit on non-Server is the simultaneous SMB connections. They always talk about limiting TCP connections but I've never actually run into that, even with offices with 10-20 boxes. So what I do is I usually setup an office with Linux as the SMB server and use Win Server just for the custom app and maybe domain control and GP's.
YMMV. Happy hunting.
P.S. I hate Windows and its artificial limitations and punishing legit paying customers.