I'm seeking some
feedback regarding the use of the new 2003 admin. tools against a Windows 2000
only directory. I implemented these tools many moons ago on an internal,
production 2000 forest on both XP and Server 2003 clients and have experienced
no significant (insurmountable) issues. Coincidentally enough, I recently
offered this as an alternative *potential* solution in the public
newsgroups for those administering 2000 directories who wish to take
advantage of the newer features such as "Saved queries" and "Multiple object
edit" (to name but a few) ... quite honestly, that's the main reason for
soliciting your feedback.
I'm considering
automating the necessary directory modifications such that those customers
(specifically, one of mine) wishing to use the new features provided by the
uplevel ADMINPAK are able to do so without going through the convoluted steps
necessary to enable certain components and gaining these features without
fully forest prepping their existing directory (NOTE - doing so is, IMHO, a
satisfactory approach but I'm certain that the myth of "Extending a Windows 2000
schema is a bad, bad thing" is likely to raise its head ... thus the reasoning
behind making ONLY the necessary directory modifications).
What I'm looking for
are opinions/technical commentary or actual experience of doing so in
production or test environments other than my own.
I've exhaustively
tested this including proceeding with a full Windows 2003 forest prep in order
to ensure that the modifications made to the base 2000 schema were NOT
prohibitive to a future 2003 upgrade ... they weren't (this did require some
minor modifications prior to executing the forest prep
though).
Thanks in advance
for your thoughts and/or experiences.
Dean
