Upgrading an NT 4 Domain to Windows 2003

tomED

I have a machine here in the office running NT4 and we are using it as a domain controller.

I bought a new machine with windows 2003 and want now to run this machine as the domain controller as the NT4 machine is on its way out.

Is there any easy way to backup everything and transfer it across to the 2003 box?

Thanks in advance!

T

Jaden

A real can of worms there.

The best way to do this:

Setup the 2003 server as a backup domain controller. Make sure the NT4 machine sees it as thus.

Leave it run for a while, to allow replication of passwords, etc.

Demote the NT4 pc to backup domain controller.

Promote the 2003 server to Primary Domain controller.

Disco!

As a side note, I didn't bother going from NT4 to 2003, I went down the Samba route instead. Saved me thousands on liscence costs. It does need a fair bit of RTFM though.

tomED

Thansk for the reply Jaden,

My research has led me to believe that 2003 wont run as a backup domain to nt4.

Have you tried this at all?

If its possible that it will - that would be amazing, that would save me a lot of headaches!

Thanks again
Tom

Capt'n Midnight

The 2003 server can be a standalone server in an NT4 domain.
If the NT4 machine was not OEM then you can transfer the license to another Machine - clean install setup as a BDC and then promote etc.
TBH you really should have a BDC capable machine there somewhere - even if it is only dual boot on a workstation that gets syncronised from time to time. Another option is to phase out the NT4 box so all it does is Domain controller (logins and scripts), might as well replace the hard drives (you have redundance already ?) - you can software mirror to the new drives so no need to reinstall or change any settings. (Don't try unless you are very au fait with the implications of this.)

How many microsoft programmers does it take to change a light bulb ?
None they just redefine Active Directory as the new industry standard.

AFAIK If you move from PDC to AD then it is a one way move and lots of settings can't be changed afterwards

tomED

Thanks for the reply Capt'n

The whole idea of this is to remove the NT4 machine, but without having to go through to all the hassle of setting up all the accounts again.

I have done this before with with NT4 alright, but doing it with 2003 isn't as straight forward - that's my question - is there a straight forward way of doing it??

Thanks
Tom

Capt'n Midnight

Nt 3.51 <--> NT4 <---> NT4 was so easy - all you had to do was make sure the new server could see the old one during setup and make it a domain controller on the existing domain. Promote it, synchronise and happy days.

ADS - well some people cheat and setup new accounts on the new server and reshare files - No don't know much about it - but AFAIK you can setup a 2k/2k3 server as a standalone server (can connect to the domain - but is not a PDC or BDC) and copy files to it and THEN use a PREP utility to change it's role (but not inherit the domain settings)

Not sure if you could install NT4 on the new server make it a BDC and then PDC and then upgrade and keep the settings, user names and password - but it sounds like it's too late to do that.

The Net Accounts command for setting up new users should work on 2K - so won't have to retype all the user names :dunno:

tomED

Originally posted by Capt'n Midnight
Not sure if you could install NT4 on the new server make it a BDC and then PDC and then upgrade and keep the settings, user names and password - but it sounds like it's too late to do that.

Yeah this works, I have done this before - but it's not really any use to me. I want to upgrade because of talk of microsoft not supporting NT anymore (sometime soon).

Thanks for all your help man - really appreciate it!