Fix Error Code 0x80072F8F (Windows 2008 Server)

I've been playing around with Windows 2008 Server in anticipation of implementing it on the district network this summer. So far it appears to be yet another solid server product from Microsoft except for one little problem during activation: Error Code 0x80072F8F.

A quick search on the web didn't reveal an easy solution, and I'm hesitant to call Microsoft Tech Support to talk to some Indian I can't understand (getting a product license key over the phone with that accent is ridiculous). I double-checked that my network connections were working, proxies correctly configured, and that the virtual machine I was launching this from was connected properly. No go. Finally I found the solution from Microsoft's Knowledge Base, you just have to skip down from the Vista solution to the Windows 2003 solution.

Basically what I had to do was make sure the time and date for the server was set to the correct local time. None of the certificates appeared valid to the server, so it was throwing errors. Changing the time and date fixed the issue immediately and I was able to activate Windows 2008 Server.