You installed Windows Server 2012 R2 and everything works fine, let`s say you are testing new hardware and you find that it doesn`t have correct time and date – you set everything as it should be and start testing your new shiny server before it gets to production.
Suddenly Windows Server 2012 R2 starts to shut down. It does so every hour (or less than hour). You check your hardware, you want to declare DOA, logs doesn`t show anything suspicious, so where is the problem?
We had this „issue“ recently. There is one word missing in the text I wrote above – EVALUATION. Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation was installed.
We do that sometimes so we can stress test all the components for few days, update all the firmware…
New colleague was testing, and wasn`t aware of the problem. For some reason OS haven`t warned him of expiring Windows Evaluation.
So, if you find yourself in the situation where you Windows Server 2012 R2 Evaluation keeps shutting down – you should know that you have to extend your trial or buy a license if you already rearmed your evaluation for five times.
Instructions how to rearm your Evaluations are already described here – https://www.informaticar.net/?p=2434