Removing NT4 BDCs

[Michael Miazga]

I have a small network consisting of 2 Win2k AD Servers and 2 NT4 BDC
Servers. It is a single domain with about 60 clients on two subnets. Most
clients are Win2K or WinXP, but about 10 are Win98. I want to remove the
BDCs from the network, I want to rebuild the machines so that I can change
the domain to Native mode and upgrade to Windows 2003 Server AD. How is the
best way of doing this?

 

[Tomasz Onyszko [MVP]]

I have a small network consisting of 2 Win2k AD Servers and 2 NT4 BDC
Servers. It is a single domain with about 60 clients on two subnets. Most
clients are Win2K or WinXP, but about 10 are Win98. I want to remove the
BDCs from the network, I want to rebuild the machines so that I can change
the domain to Native mode and upgrade to Windows 2003 Server AD. How is the
best way of doing this?

You can't demote NT domain controller so just remove this servers from
your network, remove their accounts from AD, rebuild machines, add them
again to the domain, then promote as additional DCs in the domain.

 

[Guest]

I'm working through this exact situation myself right now. If your BDCs have
functions other than BDCs, you may not want to burn them to the ground and
rebuild. I used the Upromote tool (http://utools.com/UPromote.asp) to
"demote" my BDC. It becomes a workgroup member that you can rejoin to the
domain as a member server.

The product worked well for me but make sure you've read the FAQs and
understand the product before you use it.


/Marcus

 

[Michael Miazga]

That looks like a great product, will really make the transition a lot
easier. Did you have any permissions problems like they mention in the FAQ?

 

[Guest]

No permission problems for me, although rights were quite simple on my
server. The bottom line is that if you have rights on non-system volumes that
are assigned to domain users or groups, you do not want to adjust the SIDs on
those volumes. That way, the rights will be intact when you re-join the
domain.


/Marcus

 

[Michael Miazga]

Worked great on the first one. SQL Server wouldn't start until I rejoined
the domain and I had to adjust the startup account for some reason, but now
it looks good. All the shares are intact and functioning, I didn't change
the SID on them. The applications are running well too. I'll do the other
one next week after an audit, it has our old Accounting system installed on
it, and we need it only for audits/archiving. If it works as well on that
server as it did this one, this product will have saved me a ton of time.