Migrate W2K from P2P to AD

[Gurk]

I have recently started consulting for a company with a W2K server and approx. 15 XP Pro WS. The initial installation of the server was basically as a suped up workstation. Permissions are everywhere and users save everything locally. I am planning to upgrade them to AD, the wizard in 2000 seems pretty straight forward - but since I don't have the resources available to test first - does anyone have any suggestions on best way to proceed?

I would love to back everything up and start over (it is just a file server, no apps on it) but it seems overkill. The users are very reluctant to change and this project is only part time for me, so I don't want to take the cheap easy way out - but I can't invest a lot of time in it.

Thanks.

 

[markdmac]

Well, running DCPROMO isn' that hard. You could always go with all the defaults and have a basic AD up and running in 1/2 hour.

Things to conisder, if they company isn't hosting thier own web site, choose a DNS name other than the public one. so if the company is XYZ, choose a DNS name as XYZ.local instead of XYZ.com.

There is much debate on this issue, but I've found the above to be the least trouble for name resolution as you grow.

Once you have AD running you will need to create user accounts for all of your users and join the workstations to the domain. Then you are done for the most part.

I'd conisder running DHCP on the server to as it will make life easier in the long run.

I hope you find this post helpful. Please let me know if it was.

Regards,

Mark

 

[Gurk]

Thanks Mark, that is about what I thought.

Since I don't have a test environment - is it possible to upgrade to AD - while still leaving the users functioning in a peer environment until accounts and permissions are established - or can this be done in advance?

If they plan to host their own site someday in the future - should they go xyz.com instead of xyz.local?

My concern is that in inheriting someone else's machine - I don't know all the different configs / quirks that might exist.

Thanks,

Allan

 

[markdmac]

Hi Allan,

having the workstations join the domain is the last step, up until then they will continue to function in the P2P environment.

If they do eventually decide to host thier web site, it is easier to do that and simply direct the

http://WWW record

in DNS to point ot whatever IP you want. So no worries on adding that later.

I hope you find this post helpful. Please let me know if it was.

Regards,

Mark