Upgrading to 2003 AD

[Guest]

Current environment is single forest named "domain" multiple child domains like "na.domain" All DC servers are win200 sp4. We have exchange 2000 in the "na.domain". Will windows 2003 domain prep or forest prep cause any problems? If we upgrade all domain controllers to 2003 then flip over to domain/forest native mode will we be prevented from creating new domains until we rename domain to "domain.com"? If we rename domain will that break exchange?

 

[Matjaz Ladava [MVP]]

There is a issue when you do a AD upgrade with exchange in your forest. Read
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;325379 to see the
issue and how to resolve it. Domain rename won't work as long as you have
Exchange 2000 in your forest. It will detect presence of exchange and refuse
to run.

--
Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSE, MCSA, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP - Active Directory
(e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)
http://ladava.com

Current environment is single forest named "domain" multiple child domains

like "na.domain" All DC servers are win200 sp4. We have exchange 2000 in
the "na.domain". Will windows 2003 domain prep or forest prep cause any
problems? If we upgrade all domain controllers to 2003 then flip over to
domain/forest native mode will we be prevented from creating new domains
until we rename domain to "domain.com"? If we rename domain will that break
exchange?

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the help. I have another couple of questions. If I do forest prep and domain prep in all domains. Then get all domains and the forest into native mode. Can I add another child dom while the forest root is named "domain"? I was under the impression that once everything is in native mode that it has to be renamed before joing additional child domain. Is there any MS QB's that say this? Also If I were to get everything into domain/forest 2003 mode. Then upgrade all of exchange to 2003 can I do the domain rename then? Once again many thanks to anyone who can help.

 

[Matjaz Ladava [MVP]]

You do forestprep only once on forest and domain prep once in each domain.
By native mode you mean Windows Server 2003 forest functionality level ?
Yes, you can add aditional child domains in your domain, but if you are in
Windows Server 2003 functionality level, all DC's need to be Windows Server
2003. You can not rename a domain that has Exchange 2000/2003 see
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822590.

--
Regards

Matjaz Ladava, MCSE, MCSA, MCT, MVP
Microsoft MVP - Active Directory
(e-mail address removed), (e-mail address removed)
http://ladava.com

Thanks for the help. I have another couple of questions. If I do forest

prep and domain prep in all domains. Then get all domains and the forest
into native mode. Can I add another child dom while the forest root is
named "domain"? I was under the impression that once everything is in
native mode that it has to be renamed before joing additional child domain.
Is there any MS QB's that say this? Also If I were to get everything into
domain/forest 2003 mode. Then upgrade all of exchange to 2003 can I do the
domain rename then? Once again many thanks to anyone who can help..

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the help. You answered one of my questions about the exchange 2003 and being able to rename the domain. I wonder when exchange will be able to support the rename function. The main question I had was if the whole forest was at 2003 functional (native) mode would we be able to add an additional child domain. Its driving me nuts trying to remember where I heard this, but I thought that I heard if you had a traditional nt4 single name space domain like "domain" when you went into native 2003 mode forest wide you would not be able to add any other child domains until the domain was renamed.