Native vs. Mixed mode

[Stormfront26]

Hey all,

I'm a network admin researching some ways to migrate my organization form Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2003 Active Directory. I've been reading a lot and had a quick question. Can I still have member servers that run NT 4.0 or another OS and run the upgraded network in native mode or do I need to run in mixed mode? I was under the impression that as long as no NT 4.0 BDCs were left on the network I could run in native mode? I can't get rid of a lot of the servers since some are still necessary but the DCs would all run W2K3 with AD. So am I good to run in native or do I stay with mixed just to be safe? Thanks for your help!

 

[xmsre]

You can still have downlevel member servers.

 

[skialta]

You have to stay in mixed mode if you want to maintain you NT 4.0 BDCs. However, if you want to get rid of all NT 4 BDCs, you can purchase a utility called UPromote from

http://www.utools.com

that I have used several times...works like a champ! Basically, you install the utility on your NT4 BDCs, run it and it will demote the server to a member server and reboot. Very cheap...$99 for a single server or $239 for unlimited. Highly recomended. Once you demote all of your NT4 BDCs, you can then switch to Native Mode. This is of course once you have upgraded your network to Active Directory in the first place.