2000 PDC - to NT 4.0 1

[leehillyard]

Hello all, I'm currently working on a network with NT4.0 as a PDC + BDC, another part of the business on its own separate physical network now wants to join ours. - Problem, They have a windows 2000 PDC only, with 5 clients running 2000. Is it possible to demote their PDC to a member server so it can be part of our network and drop their server for authentication?

Thanks in advance

Lee

 

[NortonES2]

No, you cant change a Domain Controller to a server the operating system will have to be re-installed.

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If it doesn't leak oil it must be empty!!

 

[dholbrook]

In response to: "No, you cant change a Domain Controller to a server the operating system will have to be re-installed. "

This is not true in WIndows 2000, but is true for the NT systems. You can dcpromo a Win2000 server from DC to bare server and back again, no problem.

However, there is an easy solution to your problem, simply establish two one way trusts between these two domains,and users will have full access to both networks as if they were users in each domain. Win 2000 also supports one way trusts, and NT only supports one way trusts,so it works fine.

As an alternative approach, and one that looks forward, if there are only five users involved, you could demote their Win2000 DC to a server and move it into the NT Domain, then create the five user accounts on your NT Domain and move the user systems into your NT domain. NOTE: if the DC from the other network is also a file server,etc., those files need to be copied first to a server on your system so they will continus to be available to the users if you do the next step. The WIn2000 system needs to be wiped to do the following actions, as NT does not see the NTFS5 file structure that Win2000 uses until you have installed at least Win NT SP3, so you will not be able to install NT on this box without re-formatting it first.

Next, take their demoted DC server, wipe it and rebuild it to an bare bones NT BDC, add all the service packs, put it online and promote it to PDC in your NT domain.

Next, take the old PDC (now demoted to a BDC) off line (as an emergancy recovery unit, incase Mr. Murphy steps into the picture and the upgrade fails).

Next upgrade the new PDC back to WIn2000 and dcpromo it to DC. It is now the DC in a mixed mode network and you are on the way to coverting everything eventually to WIN2000 or WIN 2003. Don't worry about an NT license for the rebuild, you have the license for the Win2000 server and you are going right back to Win2000, you just need to begin in NT to move all the user accounts into the Win2000 domain controller you are building.

Once it is all up and running in mixed mode, you can rebuild the old NT PDC (now offline) from scratch into to a new clean build Win2000 server and add it back into the domain as a second DC, replacing one of the other BDC's, and off you go.

Now, you need to provide a lot more information to get a really good answer. You have not said how the Win2000 doamin is going to join to your physical network. Do you mean they are going to physically relocate onto your physical network? If so, then you will need to change all the IP addresses for their system to be visiable on your network and for them to be able to use your gateway, etc., (all the basic subnetting issues).

If you intend to put a router between the two networks, then you need to address the routing issues of how you wil route traffic to the Internet, firewalls, and all that good stuff. Are all these systems at a single location, or are they halfway across the world from each other?

HTH

David

 

[leehillyard]

Fantastic!!!, Followed your instructions to the 'T', works perfectly, Many Thanks.

Lee