Upgrading NT4 to 2003 domain/forest issues

[Guest]

I have a Win 2003 forest with a single domain and a two way trust
relationship with an NT 4 Domain via VPN (branch, same company). I’m planning
to upgrade the NT 4 server to Win Server 2003 and I was going to do an
in-place upgrade but I realized that this is not possible because I have to
resize the system partition. A fresh installation will be not much more work
since there are only 6 users and no many other resources to configure.

The questions I have are:

1. I believe that the correct path is to make this NT4 domain a child domain
in the current forest. If so, how can I accomplish this when during a fresh
install I will not have VPN connectivity to the Win 2003 forest/domain.

I was thinking that one way of accomplishing this could be by bringing the
server to the head office, connecting this server to the LAN and doing the
installation. If this is a feasible possibility, what would be the
consequences or side effects once I take the server back to the branch office
and I try to reestablish connectivity with the forest. What about the local
users and computers?

2. Or on the NT4 server should I setup the domain on its own forest and then
reestablish a two-way trust relationship between the forests?

3. Or is there another solution that I have not considered?

Any other advice and/or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

For a small company, unless there are special security or administrative
issues, always aim for a single domain. I would move the main office to
Windows Server 2003, re-establish the trust relationship and then rebuild
the branch office on Windows Server 2003 in the same domain.

The notion of sites in Active Directory is designed exactly for this. You
don't automatically need to start thinking about a new domain just because
you have low bandwidth.

Oli