The situation
You upgrade a full installation of Windows Server 2008 x64 or Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2012 and choose the option “Server with a GUI”.
After the upgrade you convert the Server with a GUI installation to Server Core.
In this scenario, if you try to convert back to Server with a GUI, the operation may fail and rollback to Server Core.
The cause
This problem occurs, because of three registry entires from Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 being retained during the upgrade:
These three registry entries exist in
HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWINEVTPublishers
And are named:
- {bc2eeeec-b77a-4a52-b6a4-dffb1b1370cb}
- {57e0b31d-de8c-4181-bcd1-f70e880b49fc}
- {8c9dd1ad-e6e5-4b07-b455-684a9d879900}
The resolution
To be able to convert the Windows Server 2012 installation, these registry keys need to be removed.
You can perform these actions with RegEdit.ex, but, alternatively, you can start NotePad, paste the following three commands, save the file as a .bat file and then run it from an elevated command prompt:
reg delete HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWINEVTPublishers{bc2eeeec-b77a-4a52-b6a4-dffb1b1370cb}
reg delete HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWINEVTPublishers{57e0b31d-de8c-4181-bcd1-f70e880b49fc}
reg delete HKLMSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionWINEVTPublishers{8c9dd1ad-e6e5-4b07-b455-684a9d879900}
After you restart the machine you will be able to convert the machine to a “Server with a GUI”.