My journey for upgrading web applications from SharePoint 2013 to SharePoint 2016: Step by step

I know its probably a bit late for upgrading from SharePoint 2013 to SharePoint 2016 as it should be upgraded to 2019. However, 2019 SharePoint applications upgrade I will write later on. Recently did a client project upgrade from SharePoint 2013 to SharePoint 2016, so here is my journey & steps which I followed:

Step 1: As normal procedure create a new web application from SharePoint Central Admin
Step 2: From managed content databases, remove content database for web application for Step 1

Step 3: Restore SharePoint 2013 content database on Database server

Step 4: From same managed content database choose web application created in Step 1

Step 5: After mounting content DB, we need to run few powershell commands to verify warning, possible errors which may happened during upgrade process and these are following. However, I used to add wsp solutions in order to verify possible issues may happened for code compatibility:

Step 6: As discussed we need to run series of Powershell command, first of it is: 

Test-SPContentDatabase -Name <Content_DB_Name> -WebApplication <WebAppName>

Above command will test content db against web application for all customization done as per content db are also installed in farm (WSP which we did in Step 5)

For me it just generated few warning which would not stop this upgrade as shown below

Step 7: Next powershell command in this series is to mount content db against this web application: 

Mount-SPContentDatabase -Name “<Content_DB_Name>” -DatabaseServer “<DBAlias>” -WebApplication <WebAppName>

According to microsoft documentation this command this will attach content db to web applicatoin

For me it don't show any error as show below

Step 8: Then we need to test the mounted site as Test-SPSite site url. This command run some series of health check against mounted spsite, site collection & its contents

Again it dont give any error for me

Step 9: Repair-SPSite -identity siteurl  and this command will fix any issues that it finds. For my case didn't find much

Step 10: And lastly Upgrade-SPSite siteUrl -VersionUpgrade

This command will actually upgrade site collections associated with this web application to SharePoint 2016 mode

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How to convert Windows Server 2016 Evaluation to Licensed version

Problem:

In previous blog post I have blogged about how to change SQL Server License. Similarly, the client now wants to upgrade/update its Windows Server 2016 Evaluation license.

Run winver.exe to verify current version:

Solution:

So to cut short discussion we switch to our old buddy Dism.exe, so on command prompt or power shell with elevated privileges we need to run following command:

dism /online /set-edition:ServerStandard /productkey:XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX /accepteula

After that just restart the server, and to verify the update has been successful:

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SQL Server: Once Evaluation period has expired, How to activate SQL Server or change product key

Problem Statement:

For one of my client we used SQL Server 2016 Evaluation key which give 6 months time period to evaluate SQL Server and its features.

As per discussion with client, they will in the meantime do the procurement process (usually its bit lengthy, hectic & bureaucratic process in Middle East) to procure Enterprise License as per business need. However, in the meantime our project has completed and we moved on to next client with this dependency mentioned in project closure about upgrade of Evaluation license to Enterprise license. But as expected I got a call from my client manager about assistance in changing their Evaluation license. So thought to write a blog to refer for future needs.

So in order to change evaluation license specially when its expired and don't allow any services and not allow to start and event viewer showing following error:

Solution:

Go to SQL Server installation Center and click Maintenance and then choose Edition Upgrade

Then provide license key and click Upgrade

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