Upgrade from NT4 to 2003 and logon

[Guest]

We have a Windows NT domain with 1 PDC and 2 BDC servers. We added a new BDC,
promoted it to PDC, installed Windows Server 2003 and then shifted to a Windows
2003 domain and Active Directory. Network connectivity is okay as well as DNS
resolution. The problem is that most clients still choose the former PDC (now BDC)
as their preferred logon server and they don't choose the new Windows 2003 DC. I
heard of a Nt4Emulator key to load in the registry in order to prevent overloading
on the first DC during a promotion. Is this a problem for us?

We are going to add a couple of other Windows 2003 servers in the next few days
and decommission the former PDC (now BDC) as well. Will clients' behavior change
in the future? Will they choose the new Windows 2003 servers as their preferred
logon servers? Is there anything I can do now?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Joe]

We have a Windows NT domain with 1 PDC and 2 BDC servers. We added a new BDC,
promoted it to PDC, installed Windows Server 2003 and then shifted to a Windows
2003 domain and Active Directory. Network connectivity is okay as well as DNS
resolution. The problem is that most clients still choose the former PDC (now BDC)
as their preferred logon server and they don't choose the new Windows 2003 DC. I
heard of a Nt4Emulator key to load in the registry in order to prevent overloading
on the first DC during a promotion. Is this a problem for us?

We are going to add a couple of other Windows 2003 servers in the next few days
and decommission the former PDC (now BDC) as well. Will clients' behavior change
in the future? Will they choose the new Windows 2003 servers as their preferred
logon servers? Is there anything I can do now?

Thanks for your help.

What you need to do is to have the emulator disabled and this is done
by adding another DWORD in the regisry called neutralizeNT4. By adding
this, the clients will no longer recognize the NT Server and will
start authenticating themselves with Kerberos authentication protocol
which is the default for W2K and 2K3. Check the TechNet. They have a
step-by-step article explaining how to do it.