Demoting a domain controller 2

[said07]

I just added two new 2008r2 DCs and got my fsmo roles, dns, dhcp.. transferred to one of the new DCs.
Now I am ready to demote the 2003 Dc.
My question is: Can I do that after hours without asking the users to shut down their Pcs?
I am thinking if they were authenticated by the Dc I am demoting I might run into funny issues.
Any advice is well appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[TekkieDave]

I think you will be fine. As long as the other roles were transferred properly, and one of the new DCs are GCs, then you should be fine.

Incidentally, why don't you want the users to shut down their PCs?

 

[58sniper]

Remove the GC role from them first. But you should be fine. Here's a checklist that might help: faq1674-7371

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[SanthoshSivarajan]

Did you update the DHCP scope with new DNS/DC info?

Santhosh Sivarajan

http://blogs.sivarajan.com

http://www.sivarajan.com

 

[said07]

SanthoshSivarajan - Dhcp/dns all done. Thanks
58sniper - I follwed that doc when I started. Thanks
TekkieDave - If we can get by without asking them to shut down that's great. Otherwise if we must then we have to comply. I was thinking about doing this after hours but during week days without asking them to reboot.

 

[theravager]

As long as dns is correct the clients will just rehome during the demotion. Fine to do in business hours.

You probably want to check if there are any applications that have the old dc in a connection list in code for authentication, that one is a trap for large environments.
Ie in house apps, citrix cag boxes etc.

Keep in mind the dhcp lease time will need to expire prior to the clients getting the new dns addresses as well. Don't forget to update static devices.

 

[said07]

theravager - as far as dhcp and dns considerations, I have been running them now for about a week from the new 2008 r2 Dcs. The clients have been getting the new dns servers in their lease from the new dhcp server.
There is no mention of the to-be demoted dc anymore except maybe for couple a machines on the floor that uses static ip (I am planning to change their entries to reflect the new dns change)
But we do have citrix and exchange, I don't remember if the to-be demoted dc is mentioned somewhre in those apps. it has been more than 3 years that i did the setup. Good point I will check them out too. Just in case.
Thanks

 

[58sniper]

Take a look at this:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Exchange-System-Manager-Domain-Controller-Selection.html

I'll update the FAQ accordingly.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[said07]

Just wanted to let you know guys that all went fine.
last night I asked my users to shut down. I demoted the dc and restarted it. In the morning I found out some users "forgot" to shut down. That confirmed it can be done during business hours unless if it is an application server or file server too.
Thanks to all. One more project done and again tek-tips community lived up to its reputation.