Upgrade Win2K server to Win2K3

[idharris]

We are about to begin a process of upgrading one of our servers to
Server 2003. The upgrade process includes hardware as well as OS
upgrade.

I was planning on installing the new Win2k3 server into the domain and
downgrading the existing server and removing it from the domain
entirely.

The domain currently consists of 2 x Win2K servers not running
Exchange, only network services like file and print, DNS, DHCP etc.

Can anyone see any problems with doing it this way or can anyone forsee
any problems I may run into?

 

[Cary Shultz [A.D. MVP]]

It is not clear if you are simply going to introduce new hardware and
software ( WIN2003 ) or if you are going to do an in-place upgrade. I
gather that you are simply going to purchase a new server ( whatever 'new'
means ) and install WIN2003 Server on it and join it to the Domain.

What is also not clear is if you are going to promote that new WIN2003
Server to be a Domain Controller. It seems like you will. In that case,
you will need to run adprep /forestprep and adprep /domainprep on your
WIN2000 AD. You do this normally by dropping in your WIN2003 Server
CD-Media into one of the DCs and run those two commands. This will extend
the Schema so that you can introduce WIN2003 Domain Controllers.

I would suggest that you do the adprep /forestprep and adprep /domainprep
before you do anything. Since you are not running Exchange there should not
be any problems ( were you running Exchange 2000 you would probably need to
worry about the Mangled Attributes problem ).

Once this has taken place and replication has taken place I might add the
WIN2003 Server to the Domain and then run dcpromo. So, now you would have
three Domain Controllers. I would then transfer all five of the FSMO Roles
to that WIN2003 DC as well as any other services that might be running on
the DC that you would like to demote. And for God's sake please install DNS
on that WIN2003 Domain Controller.

This should get you started.

--
Cary W. Shultz
Roanoke, VA 24012

WIN2000 Active Directory MVP
http://www.activedirectory-win2000.com
(soon to be updated!!!)
http://www.grouppolicy-win2000.com
(soon to be updated!!!)