Ancient DC in W2K environment

[wikken]

All of my servers are currently W2K. I have an ancient server that was the first DC in the domain. (I have 2 other domain controllers in a cluster environment.)The ancient DC has my TS licensing on it and it has our Veritas backup software on it and a bunch of other software... I know it is going to go down at some point and I want to replace it. If I purchase a new server it comes with Windows 2003. Can I install all of the software on the new server and make this Windows 2003 a DC in a Windows 2000 environment? I have a mostly TS environment and I am concerned that no one will be able to sign-on if I mess this up... Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[markdmac]

In order to do this you will need to first run
ADPREP /FORESTPREP
ADPREP /DOMAINPREP

That will prepare your domain to have a 2003 DC.

Next you will want to promote the new server to a DC.

Wait for replication about 15 minutes. Then you will want to transfer all of the FSMO roles that the old server is holding. Set the new server as a Global Catalog too.

You will need to install the TS Licenses over ont he new machine. There is no way that I am aware of to transfer that to the new server.

Migrate any other applications and data over and you are ready to DCPROMO the old server out of AD.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[wikken]

Thanks Mark,

I would like to take this further, and upgrade the other two clustered domain controllers. I have done some investigation and cannot find much mentioning Domain Controllers that are clustered and how to upgrade them to 2003. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[markdmac]

Sorry I do not have any expertise with the clusters.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[BenyG]

Unless you have a specific need to only have 2 referred DCs in your netowrk (1 cluster and 1 2003 DC) then there is no need to cluster the DCs as they are desined to work fine if 1 goes down - it is the motive for having >1 DC as it would otherwise be a single point of failure. My network has 3 DCs - none are clustered as if one goes down the others take over.

Benjamin