How to change Product Key of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition

I had been struggling to upgarde my Team Foundaion Server 2008 from a Workgroup Edition to an Standard Edition one. So I though I would post the solution to help any others with the same problem.

 
I had installed TFS 2008 Workgroup edition (from the MSDN) over an existing TFS 2005 install (that’s another story!).
I then arranged to purchase the Standard Edition key and proceeded to follow the instruction to do the upgrade. Normally this involves using ‘Change\Remove’ from the Add/Remove Programs to enter TFS Maintenance Mode Options.
In theory here you should select the ‘Upgrade to Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server’ and enter your CD key. However no matter what I tried the CD Key fields remained Greyed out and pre-filled. One possible solution was to run the setup from the installation rather than entering the Add/Remove programs. This did not work for me.
 
I then found the following solution which did the trick and credit must go to KukoricaJanos. See original post at How to change Product Key of Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition
 
The solution:
  1. Open in notepad the following file "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server – ENU\setup.sdb"
  2. Locate the [Product Key] section
  3. Change the 26 license key to one that was obtained officially or use a license key from a trial version
  4. Run again the Change/Remove for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server – ENU from Add or Remove Programs
  5. The CDKey entry should contain the new license key or should enable to edit it (in case of a trial key)
Do remember that once TFS is in full server mode the ‘Licensed Users’ group is no longer used. So don’t try and add more users to this group as it will still not allow more than 5 accounts in it anyway.
 

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