BDC's and Native Mode

[Kristoffer E]

We have a newly installed AD domain with a few old NT4 BDC's, one as
running Exchange 5.5 and one as a file server. It will take us longer
then expected to replace these server (no upgrade).We have no need for
these servers to do authentication or perform any role other than of a
simple member server.
Has anyone had experience in converting to native mode with NT4 BDC's
still online?
Does anyone know how to "remove" the domain controller role from a
BDC? except from stopping the netlogon service?

 

[Simon Geary]

Don't convert to native mode while you still have NT BDC's on the network.
The potential problems will outweigh the benefits of native mode I would
say. Although you can tweak a BDC so that it will not be able to
authenticate there is no provided or supported procedure that will do this
cleanly. I can see what you are trying to do and it sounds plausible in
theory but I would suggest you wait until you have replaced your BDC's
before you convert.
I've no experience with Exchange 5.5 but I would guess you might experience
problems there if you disable the netlogon service on that server.

 

[Matthew Kitchin]

I have used this tool to demote a BDC before.
http://www.algintech.com/UTools/UPromote.asp
It works well.

-Matthew