NT 4 to AD W2K3 - Where to start?

[Guest]

Been spending time on the MS boards and sites, still trying to come up with the best migragtion/upgrade strategy for my current NT 4 domain. I wish to replace it with AD 2003 (as well as my Exchange 5.5 to 2003)

Should I upgrade the NT 4 PDC (keep a BDC off line) to 2003 and go for the AD wizard - or should I setup a separate, new AD 2003, trust it and migrate over

Its a large install base - 2,000 PC's, 100 servers (mixed of NT 4 SP6a, 2000 and 2003), 20+ BDC's, etc

I don't want to impact production - lots of IIS, SQL and Exchange users

Really just trying to find a starting point and strategy - any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Roger Crawford]

Well I have not did it at your scale of workstations or users but I can tell
you what has worked best for me. If I was bringing in new hardware I would
install NT 4 and SP6a on the new system and make it a BDC and then when I
had it all up and running properly I would promote it to the PDC. Once I was
sure all replication/sync had happened I would unplug this server and get my
DNS domain name what I wanted it ie if you have it domainname.com I would
change mine to domain.local or whatever you prefer and reboot and then
upgrade it to 2003 in-place. Go through all the steps involved with the
upgrade process and once I had AD installed on the server and it was
rebooting I would plug the network connection back in and let it sync with
all the BDC's in the domain and I would check in the Event Log to make sure
I was getting the Netlogin events of the BDC's communicating with the new
DC. This is basically a condensed version but I think you get the idea here
on what has worked for me. I have then Installed ADC between the new server
and the Exchange 5.5 Server and made sure that was replicatining like it
should and then I would install Exchange 2003 and let it and the Exchange
5.5 Server work together while I went through the Migration or Mailbox move
from the 5.5 Server to the new 2003 Exchange Server. They have some good how
to papers on this.

Roger Crawford
HTS

 

[Mike Brannigan [MSFT]]

Been spending time on the MS boards and sites, still trying to come up

with the best migragtion/upgrade strategy for my current NT 4 domain. I wish
to replace it with AD 2003 (as well as my Exchange 5.5 to 2003).

Should I upgrade the NT 4 PDC (keep a BDC off line) to 2003 and go for the

AD wizard - or should I setup a separate, new AD 2003, trust it and migrate
over?

Its a large install base - 2,000 PC's, 100 servers (mixed of NT 4 SP6a,

2000 and 2003), 20+ BDC's, etc.

I don't want to impact production - lots of IIS, SQL and Exchange users.

Really just trying to find a starting point and strategy - any help would

be greatly appreciated.


Everything you need to know (assuming you already know enough about Active
Directory) is in the Windows Serve 2003 Deployment Resource Kit and other
resources we have made available

see
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/reskit/deploykit.mspx
and
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/upgrading/nt4/upgradeassistance/default.mspx

--
Regards,

Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Please note I cannot respond to e-mailed questions, please use these
newsgroups

Been spending time on the MS boards and sites, still trying to come up

with the best migragtion/upgrade strategy for my current NT 4 domain. I wish
to replace it with AD 2003 (as well as my Exchange 5.5 to 2003).

Should I upgrade the NT 4 PDC (keep a BDC off line) to 2003 and go for the

AD wizard - or should I setup a separate, new AD 2003, trust it and migrate
over?

Its a large install base - 2,000 PC's, 100 servers (mixed of NT 4 SP6a,

2000 and 2003), 20+ BDC's, etc.

I don't want to impact production - lots of IIS, SQL and Exchange users.

Really just trying to find a starting point and strategy - any help would

be greatly appreciated.