How can I tell how many days I have left to do my SBS 2011 Migration?

It’s easy to lose track of how long you’ve taken to do a migration, particularly if you have multiple projects running at the same time.  Lucky for us in SBS 2011 Standard, Microsoft have an easy way to know how many days left you have to do the migration before the SBS 2003 or SBS 2008 server will shutdown automatically.

Firstly – you need to know that you have a maximum of 21 days to do the migration from the point at which the SBS 2011 server is built into the existing SBS network.  Once that limit is reached, your SBS 2003 or SBS 2008 server will shutdown automatically to prevent you from violating the license agreement.

To see how many days left you have in the migration, you can do the following.

1. Open the Migration Wizard from the SBS 2011 console
2. On the left hand pane of the Home tab, you will see the Getting Started Tasks section.
3. Double click the Migrate to Windows SBS link and open the SBS 2011 Migration wizard.
4. In the lower half of the screen you will see a section listing the following text

“You must finish the migration within X days of beginning the installation.  After X days, the source server shuts down, and it continues to shut down after about an hour each time you restart it.”

X of course will be the number of days you have left to finish the migration.

What happens if you have problems with the migration and need more than the 21 days Microsoft have allowed?  Well legally there is no way around this.  If you are having issues completing the migration within 21 days, then you need to contact Microsoft for assistance on fixing whatever problem you are having that is preventing you from getting it done in time.