AD from Windows 2000 to 2003

[jftuga]

We have 3 Windows 2000 Domain Controllers. We have purchased 2 (soon to be 3) new servers with Win 2003 R2. We would like to retire all 3 of our Win 2000 servers. What is the best way to migrate Active Directory off of these 3 servers and onto our 2 new Win 2003 servers? Are their any Microsoft KB articles, websites, books, etc that discuss this? Most of what I have found ony discuss migration from NT4 to 2000 and not 2000 to 2003.

Is there any chance it would be as simple as promoting the 2003 servers and then demoting the 2000 servers? FWIW, we also run Exchange 2003.

Thanks,

-John

[jondercik]

Essentially yes. What I would do is promote the 3 new servers let them replicate, then one at a time demote the 2k servers.

[fizban2]

you can just promote the servers to DCs and the replication will take care of the AD information, the FSMO roles will need to be migrated to the new servers before the old ones are decommisioned, a good question would be is do you like your AD design and setup? this would be a excellent time to review the AD design and layout and see if anything is amiss or could be done to make AD more streamlined since the migration steps from 2000 to 2003 are not that bad.

[jftuga]

How do I migrate FSMO roles? IIRC, there are 5 of them, right? Should they all reside on the same box or should they be spread out across different servers?

-John

[fizban2]

if you have the servers available you can spread them out across DCs, though with only 3 DCs it may not be needed unless you had specific roles you wanted by themselves if you open the ADUC, right click on your DC listed there. you will have the option for operations masters, here you can migrated the roles to another DC after you bring it up in the domain

[tguy]

Check out Daniel Petri's website http://www.petri.co.il Lots of good info. on how to do what your looking to do.

ADUC is only one place you'll need to look to transfer the FSMO roles. You will also need Domains and Trusts and the you'll need to register schmmgmt.dll using regsvr32 then open the AD schema in MMC to transfer the Schema Master thru a GUI unless you prefer to do everything through command line with like NTDSUTIL.

[jftuga]

Thanks for all of the info!

-John

[Zartach]

To migrate from windows 2000 functional level to Windwows 2003 functional level you will need to run adprep, when you set up one of the 2003 servers as a DC. This sounds a lot more scary than it actually is though.

It is reccomended you run the FSMO roles on 2003 after upgrading. Wait for it until you _know_ the replication has finished though. This article describes how you can move or sieze them: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255504/

Seizing them is more intrusive, and is not reccomended unless you had a major crash and are otherwise unable to restore theold server.

For reccomendations and info on FSMO roles: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223346/

Be carefull if you have an exchange mail environment and follow these steps to prevent problems in the schema regarding exchange: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314649/en-us

Hope it helps,