SharePoint 2010 is available in 2 versions namely Standard and Enterprise. If you have installed a standard version and want to convert to Enterprise features then you can simply change the license type by
- Opening Central Administration
- Entering the new License Key by Clicking Convert farm license type
Looks Simple.. But wait, Do you see the Textbox disabled? 
There is another way to change License type from Standard CAL to Enterprise CAL.
- Open Central Administration
- Navigate to Upgrade and Migration
- Click “Enable Enterprise Features“
- Enter your Enterprise CAL key and Press OK
- Wait for few minutes and enjoy the Enterprise features of SharePoint 2010
Keep in mind there is no turning back here. Once you upgrade to Enterprise version you cannot switch back to Standard version.
In this post we will see how to convert a site to site collection.
- Save the existing site to site template (site actions-> site settings -> save site as template)
- Download the created stp file from site template gallery of site collection and copy it to SharePoint server and we can delete it from site template gallery.
- For adding this template to central administration site templates we need to execute the addtemplate stsadm command.
“C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\STSADM.exe” -o addtemplate -filename “G:\Shared\mysite.stp” -title “mysite” -description “mysite”
- Reset IIS
Now we can see the new site template under custom tab while creating site collection
SharePoint MVP Sharad Kumar has released a tool which helps you create host-header based site collections via central admin.
You can read about it in his blog post or download it from codeplex.
