Both of Ed's points are absolutely correct. I only had two of my in-place upgrades go south, but in both cases, they went COMPLETELY south and I had to use those in-reserve BDCs to do the domain upgrade (and boy, does that ever raise your heart rate, when you're bringing up that really crappy old BDC, just praying all that domain information is on it). And he's right about demoting and reloading and repromoting the upgraded DCs; I still have a few running that I have not done that with, but that's because I'd done some fancy footwork on those to give them 8GB partitions with NT4. All the ones with the standard 4GB partitions ran out of space after about a year of Windows updates, even with all the applications/logs/etc. loaded on other partitions and SP1 run with the /N switch to skip backing up the existing files.
Thanks, Geni Hawkins -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Crowley [MVP] Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 7:49 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: RE: [off-topic] Upgrading from NT4 domains to Win 2003 AD Importance: Low Another tip is to bring up a BDC just before your upgrade, let synchronization complete, then shut it down. You can use a surplus workstation for this. If anything goes wrong, you have a way to fall back. In addition, when you upgrade your NT4 PDC, you're going to end up with a DC that probably isn't configured like you'd want to be down the line in that it'll have a 4GB system partition (max) and a bunch of legacy stuff on it. So, consider the DC you upgrade to be a throwaway and build a new one (better, build at least two) after the upgrade to modern standards, promote it, and transfer all the FSMO roles to it. Then demote and rebuild the upgraded one. Ed Crowley MCSE+Internet MVP Time Magazine's Person of the Year! -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of titanic panic Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 6:34 PM To: Exchange Discussions Subject: Re: [off-topic] Upgrading from NT4 domains to Win 2003 AD Wow, fantastic reply. My sincere thanks for the thoughtful and well-laid out e.mail, it's greatly appreciated. And yes, I wanted to resist going to all the desktops and rejoining them to a new domain which might've meant new local profiles for everyone, so the inplace procedure is my preferred method. I'll bore you all with the woes of the migration very soon, take care. joon On 2/22/07, Hawkins, Geni P <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The most critical thing with an AD migration is to have a rock-solid > DNS in place before you migrate the first domain controller. If you > aren't sure how to do that, I highly recommend a consultant for the > design piece, and to assist you with building the root of the forest > and the DNS. > > I opted to do an in-place migration from NT4 to Windows 2003 AD, > because I have 32 domains and there's only one of me. I'd like to do > a domain consolidation, but again, there's only one of me. The > in-place actually worked fine, even on our 8-year-old domain > controllers. The process is essentially to take an NT4 domain > controller, replicate to all BDCs, then bring the BDCs down and hold > them in reserve. Upgrade the PDC in-place to Windows 2003. It's > messier than a clean install, but a whole lot faster, and users don't > have to get new accounts. Once the upgrade is done, the PDC will ask > you if you want to promote the machine, which you do. Promote it, and > then promote another server (non-domain-controller is easiest) to be > your BDC (those roles don't really exist anymore, but it's the easiest > way to refer to them). > Upgrade the domains and then the forest to native mode when all DCs > are 2003. > > Bringing up new domains and new user accounts is, of course, > preferable, but also much more time-consuming and will require the > users to log onto the new accounts. In our case, we have too small a > support organization for that to be feasible. The in-place made the > whole migration almost completely transparent to the users; I doubt > most knew that anything changed at all. They DID notice when OWA went > from the 5.5 interface to 2003, and boy, were they all happy about > that! I probably got more thank-yous for that than anything over the > course of the last 25 years of playing with servers. > > For Exchange, I'd recommend bringing up a brand-spanking-new Exchange > 2003 server, creating a connection agreement with your 5.5 site, then > moving mailboxes. Migrate your public folders and connectors, then > remove the connection agreements and bring down the 5.5 box. When all > Exchange servers are at 2003, upgrade to native mode. > > Be careful of the Active Directory migration process creating disabled > user accounts that have the Exchange mailbox properties attached to > them (this happened to me with 4 domains). Don't delete those > accounts - run the Active Directory cleanup tool to merge those with > the non-disabled accounts that don't have the Exchange properties. > > All of this stuff is documented extensively in whitepapers and best > practices documents, etc., but because no one who doesn't know your > environment can really tell you the best way to go, no one can point > you to a single document that will tell you how best to do a migration > in YOUR environment. A consultant is where you'd want to turn for > that, someone who can come in, study your environment, and then make > the appropriate recommendations. > > Thanks, > > Geni Hawkins > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Albert Duro > Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2007 8:25 AM > To: Exchange Discussions > Subject: Re: [off-topic] Upgrading from NT4 domains to Win 2003 AD > > Wow, this is ancient history and faded memories. All I can offer is > that MS documentation was abundant and pretty much all that was needed. > But what's needed most is studying, planning, more studying, and more > planning. And, although you offer few details, it sounds like you > have a substantial site architectural job ahead of you. It's probably > not what you want to hear, but you need a consultant who knows how to > do this. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "titanic panic" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "Exchange Discussions" <[email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 11:38 AM > Subject: [off-topic] Upgrading from NT4 domains to Win 2003 AD > > > > Hello all, > > > > Please forgive the off-topic question, but I couldn't resist asking > > this knowledgeable group of admins their advice on this question. > > > > We are finally moving off our NT4/Exch5.5 systems and would like to > > upgrade to Win2003 AD/Exch 2003. We have 5 offices, all of which > > are using NT4 domains and trusts between the offices over PPTP VPN links. > > > > What is the most highly recommended book/documentation to perform > > this scary and Herculean task? > > > > Thanks, > > > > joon > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm > > Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange > > To subscribe: > > http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ > > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: > > Jupitermedia Corp. > > Attn: Discussion List Management > > 475 Park Avenue South > > New York, NY 10016 > > > > Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm > Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange > To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ > To unsubscribe send a blank email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: > Jupitermedia Corp. > Attn: Discussion List Management > 475 Park Avenue South > New York, NY 10016 > > Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. > > > _________________________________________________________________ > List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm > Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange > To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ > To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: > Jupitermedia Corp. > Attn: Discussion List Management > 475 Park Avenue South > New York, NY 10016 > > Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. > > _________________________________________________________________ List posting FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm Web Interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=exchange To subscribe: http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Exchange List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. 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