Replacing a domain controller...

[Martin S.]

Hi all,

We have two domain controllers on our network, we are going to replace the
oldest one, which is also the "root" domain controller. When I use dcpromo
to de-activate the "root" DC will this also transfer the FSMO roles onto the
other domain controller or do I still need to run ntdsutil to manually
transfer the FSMO roles before running dcpromo?

Thanks,
Martin.

 

[Brian Cryer]

Hi all,

We have two domain controllers on our network, we are going to replace the
oldest one, which is also the "root" domain controller. When I use dcpromo
to de-activate the "root" DC will this also transfer the FSMO roles onto
the other domain controller or do I still need to run ntdsutil to manually
transfer the FSMO roles before running dcpromo?

Thanks,
Martin.

I recall having problems when I didn't explicitly transfer the roles before
decommissioning our old domain controller, so I would advise transferring
these manually.

 

[Hank Arnold]

Assuming everything works as it is supposed to, the roles will automatically
transfer. I prefer to transfer the roles manually. This way you know it
worked. Also, in a case where there are more than 2 DCs, you don't have
control over which DC a role is transferred to...

Don't forget the other functions that the DC is serving. (DNS, DHCP, etc.)
these are not automatically moved when you DCPROMO.....

 

[Jorge_de_Almeida_Pinto]

Hi all,

We have two domain controllers on our network, we are going to
replace the
oldest one, which is also the "root" domain controller. When I
use dcpromo
to de-activate the "root" DC will this also transfer the FSMO
roles onto the
other domain controller or do I still need to run ntdsutil to
manually
transfer the FSMO roles before running dcpromo?

Thanks,
Martin.

When demoting a DC that holds FSMO roles it trys to transfer the FSMO
roles to other available DCs. However it is a best practice to do it
yourself through the NTDSUTIL or through the MMCs