Raise Forest Functionality

[Chris W]

If you have a two domain forest with a parent and child domain both at
Window 2003 Functionality Level but the forest is at Windows 2000
Functionality Level are there any risk in changing the Forest to Windows
2003 Functionality Level. Does this change the schema?

 

[Erik Cheizoo]

None what so ever. This is a perfectly safe procedure.
I successfully uplifted forest functionality of a forest containing 60+
child domains and no problems were reported.

Raising functional levels only affects the way DCs communicate with each
other. It does not affect DC to workstation or member server communication
nor does it affect the schema.

--
Kind regards,

Erik Cheizoo
eXcellence & Difference - we keep your business running
============================================
Always test in a non-production environment before implementing
Guidelines for posting: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555375
============================================

 

[Paul Williams [MVP]]

If you have Exchange 2000, the RUS will break. This is down to LVR.

There's another issue to do with Exchange that I can't remember too.

Otherwise, no issues. It's as Erik says - simply about enabling features
for DCs that aren't compatible with earlier DCs.

 

[Joe Richards [MVP]]

It can impact the RUS and the ADC, there are hotfixes available now for
this or also you can run those services on an Exchange 2003 server.

If you do a FFL upgrade, I believe you will find a schema change occurs
and a couple of attributes get marked to be included in the PAS. This is
done this way instead of during the prep because then the partial sync
between K3 servers can occur so it has little impact.

joe

--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm

 

[Erik Cheizoo]

Hi Joe,

I can't remember I've seen a schema change when we upgraded our forest.
If the FFL did change the schema, it replicated very quickly without any
impact.

--
Kind regards,

Erik Cheizoo
eXcellence & Difference - we keep your business running
============================================
Always test in a non-production environment before implementing
Guidelines for posting: http://support.microsoft.com/?id=555375
============================================

 

[Joe Richards [MVP]]

Correct, very small change, basically the PAS attribute is changed from
FALSE to TRUE for a couple of attributes. With K3, this change doesn't
force the same process that it does with a 2K DC so you don't have the
massive hit you get with 2K. That is why they wait to do it until K3 FFL2.

Schema changes themselves are generally relatively painless when done
properly. I have yet to have seen an AD issue due to a schema update
when everything was done correctly. At worst I have seen some extremely
slow replication times which have mostly been cleaned up. For instance
back in early 2000 an exchange 2000 schema mod I made took over 16 hours
to replicate to all DCs across a 400 DC forest after MSFT said it would
take about an hour or so. That was due to various indexing and GC bugs
and that was all cleaned up shortly after with hotfixes.



--
Joe Richards Microsoft MVP Windows Server Directory Services
Author of O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition
www.joeware.net


---O'Reilly Active Directory Third Edition now available---

http://www.joeware.net/win/ad3e.htm

 

[Jorge de Almeida Pinto [MVP - DS]]

see:
http://blogs.dirteam.com/blogs/jorg...E2K-to-W2K3-_2800_R2_29002F00_E2K3_3F00_.aspx


and check the section at the end about increasing the FFL

--

Cheers,
(HOPEFULLY THIS INFORMATION HELPS YOU!)

# Jorge de Almeida Pinto # MVP Windows Server - Directory Services

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