Server 2003 to Server 2008 R2 DC Upgrade

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/usr/home

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So I have a client that has a dying server and we are replacing it with a new server running Server 2008 R2. They are currently running server 2003 R2 and it is their domain controller. I've googled around quite a bit, but I'm having trouble understanding exactly the right steps that I need to do and in what order. Here's what I understand so far:

1: Set a static IP on the new server with it's DNS pointing to the IP of the main DC server.
2: forestprep and domainprep the old server with ADPREP located on the Server 2008 R2 DVD.
3: Run DCPROMO on the new server and make it an aditional domain controller.
4: Follow the rest of the steps from the site below.
5: Once it's all working, run DCPROMO on the old server to demote it.

What I'm also wondering, how long does it take for these things to replicate over? Is there a way to force it?

Basically this page seems to tell me what steps I need to do. (It doing it from 2000 - 2003 but I'm assuming the principles are the same.)

Looks like it is time to get out the ESXi server again. I may borrow another server from work just so I can have multiple clients joined to the virtual 2003 domain to practice with.

http://jaredheinrichs.com/how-to-replace-a-windows-server-2003-domain-controller.html
 
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Your steps sound accurate to me from what I've read.

As far as replication time, I think that depends on the size
of what you're working with.

I'm gonna hope you aren't sitting there for hours watching something
but...I had a customer with a mini-atx "mainframe" as he called it, that
had blown capacitors and all kinds of other issues, and it was so god
awful slow that when it finally died, I was almost happy for him. If you
had to work off something like that, then my god have pity on your soul
my child :D
 
It's not a large domain. Maybe 20 workstations and the dying server is still decent. It's 4 years old and off warranty and the RAID controller is going and it crashes the server a few times a week. A hard reset fixes it. When it's working, it works fine still. I'm hoping it'll take a few minutes, but who knows. This company is about 2 hours from where I live, (middle of nowhere, town of 300 people) so I'd prefer to not have to sit there waiting for it replicate for hours.
 
i guess you don't got a spare server to install R2 on and make it a 2nd DC in the network then you can simply "demote" the other domain and be done with it, replication wont take hours with to replicate, shouldnt.
 
The new 2008R2 server IS the second DC for a little bit. Then I'd demote the original 2003 DC leaving just the new server and the one and only DC.
 
a small network like that should replicate within a few minutes under normal conditions.
 
when you dcpromo the 2008R2 it will copy over users, gpo, sysvol etc. youll need to run adprep on the 2003 server before joining the new server to the domain as well. another thing you may want to do is p2v the 2003 DC, incase you need to revert to it later.
 
MarshallX said:
when you dcpromo the 2008R2 it will copy over users, gpo, sysvol etc. youll need to run adprep on the 2003 server before joining the new server to the domain as well. another thing you may want to do is p2v the 2003 DC, incase you need to revert to it later.
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Actually, they run software that will only work on Server 2003 and they are wanting to upgrade that, but it's a lengthy process. In the meantime I was going to hyper-v the old server and they will do the transitioning and training for the new software (they are 3 major versions behind, about 3 months worth of training and upgrading) thats will run on the new server, but also in the meantime keep using their old software.
 
run on the same server that is the DC? i suggest you find another server for some customsoftware run on.
 
I am about to do this also and need some help/info.

I see many version of it online.:confused:
 
AMD_Gamer said:
I am about to do this also and need some help/info.

I see many version of it online.:confused:
Click to expand...

Adding and removing DCs is probably one of the easiest parts of a project. OP has it correct in terms of steps, the only thing that may throw you is make sure when you run adprep off the 2008R2 CD on the 2003 server that you run adprep32.exe because the default adprep on 2008R2 is a x64 app.

Other then that it is very simple and strait forward. When you run DCPromo on the new server it will install and configure the DNS role for you, and when your done with everything just make sure you change the primary DNS of your new AD to itself (assuming you only have one DNS server on the network).

Replication takes 10 minutes max. I usually will build my AD machines, run DCpromo, then build my next machine (usually exchange) and by the time I am done with the initial build the DCs are done replicating.
 
/usr/home said:
Actually, they run software that will only work on Server 2003 and they are wanting to upgrade that, but it's a lengthy process. In the meantime I was going to hyper-v the old server and they will do the transitioning and training for the new software (they are 3 major versions behind, about 3 months worth of training and upgrading) thats will run on the new server, but also in the meantime keep using their old software.
Click to expand...

This shouldn't impact the domain controller process though. You can still demote it and have a 2008R2 functional level.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
What steps do you need? I've done several of these projects over the past few months and starting another one this week.
Click to expand...

pretty much everything lol. I think i got the DC procedure down to a science, it is just a matter of having the new server 2008 get everything replicated then demote the old 2003 DC. I will follow the steps here: http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037334752&postcount=14

Now If somebody could point me to instructions on how to migrate an Exchange 2003 setup to a new Exchange 2010 server that would be great. This will be a Server 2003 machine running Exchange 2003 and i will be bringing up a new Server 2008 machine running Exchange server 2010.
 
Yeah that's similar steps to what I've done, he does the role tranfers at the command prompt, I do them with MMC GUI....also checking event viewer along the process to monitor transferring of the roles and replication. I also manually force replication a few times along the process.

Don't forget to setup DHCP on the new server. And any nodes that you manually setup TCP/IP on...you'll want to go changed their DNS settings to point to the new server.

For Exchange...I haven't done 2010 into 2003 until....yesterday, I just started one. It's a Small Biz Server 2003 client that has bust past the 75 user mark...and I just started a migration of them to Standard 2008 AD with Exchange 2010. Exchange installed fine on a new box...saw the existing Exchange 2003 org...and laid out a few steps and automatically does a /prepareAD. I'll be fiddling with it more starting today and over the weekend...but I'm sure it will be similar to replacing Exchange 2000 with Exchange 2007, which I did last year at another site.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638130.aspx is the dry Microsoft article.
I'll be re-reading this guide here which I found fairly decent
http://msexchangegeek.com/2010/01/30/rapid-transition-guide-from-exchange-2003-to-exchange-2010/
 
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Stonecat, RE: DHCP I have been moving toward setting up machines or devices that need static IP with DHCP reservations that way it can all be changed at the dhcp console. Thoughts?
 
timberdoodle said:
Stonecat, RE: DHCP I have been moving toward setting up machines or devices that need static IP with DHCP reservations that way it can all be changed at the dhcp console. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I like using DHCP reservations for most things like network printers, however...I still prefer to setup "servers" with manually assigned IPs. The reason? Some services that some servers run, such as DNS, start loading right away...and since DNS relies so much on TCP/IP...and settings in there need its usual IP address, you can see stuff like DNS take longer and have hiccups if the IP address isn't assigned yet because the server hasn't gotten assigned the reservation early enough in the bootup process yet.
 
For the OP, in an enviornment that small the replication shouldn't take any more than a few minutes. I prefer to leave outgoing DC's up for a night to ensure full replication prior to demoting them. Paranoia, but I've not had an upgrade go sour yet :D. And then if you have remote access, start the demotion process so by the time you get on-site there's nothing left but tearing down the old server.

Exchange 2003 to 2010 really isn't that bad. There are a BUNCH of guides out there by now to use and even after doing more than a few, I still use my favorite more as a checklist than anything else. The biggest gotcha that I found was in the public folders and replication if your client uses them. That's always been a sticky issue in Exchange anyway, the Public folder replication...
 
I have just done this in a VM setup and it went fine. Although 2 servers in VMs is quite a bit different to 5 servers over VPNs

We also have a child domain so i'm not sure if it neesd to be done there as well?
 
Sorry I didn't update you guys. The project was successful. The only difficulty I had was doing the Physical2Virtual step, but I got it the second image. I also found out you have to boot into safe mode, remove all the HP agents and install the VM tools and then boot into normal mode on the VM otherwise it will be dog-slow. It took me maybe an hour to get to a desktop and even then things were super slow. I did those steps, and it's as snappy as ever. I had to transfer all the FSMO roles first to the secondary old server because they were messed up on the main one, and then transfer them later to the new 2008 R2 DC. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or PM me. I'm by no means an expert as this was my first one, but it went fairly smoothly and I really enjoyed learning it. Thanks for the help guys.
 
/usr/home said:
Sorry I didn't update you guys. The project was successful. The only difficulty I had was doing the Physical2Virtual step, but I got it the second image. I also found out you have to boot into safe mode, remove all the HP agents and install the VM tools and then boot into normal mode on the VM otherwise it will be dog-slow. It took me maybe an hour to get to a desktop and even then things were super slow. I did those steps, and it's as snappy as ever. I had to transfer all the FSMO roles first to the secondary old server because they were messed up on the main one, and then transfer them later to the new 2008 R2 DC. If you have any questions, feel free to ask or PM me. I'm by no means an expert as this was my first one, but it went fairly smoothly and I really enjoyed learning it. Thanks for the help guys.
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I've never had to boot into safe mode to yank the manufacturers agents (hp or dell or whatever)....but yeah, she'll be pokey until you install the VMTools (sometimes takes 2 or 3 times)...and if it's Server 2K or 2K3...go to display properties..and slide that hardware acceleration slide bar to full.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
I've never had to boot into safe mode to yank the manufacturers agents (hp or dell or whatever)....but yeah, she'll be pokey until you install the VMTools (sometimes takes 2 or 3 times)...and if it's Server 2K or 2K3...go to display properties..and slide that hardware acceleration slide bar to full.
Click to expand...

I quickly googled that problem and it was a suggestion so I tried that and the VM tools so I probably didn't have to uninstall the agents, but whatever. Booting into safe mode was quick though. It ran how it should. I'm glad the VM tools wasn't an MSI or anything where you need to be in normal mode... that'd be painful.
 
I did the \forestprep and \domianprep and everything seemed to work. I then setup the new Server 2008 machine as a DC and everything replicated but under the domain properties it still says the Domain Functional Level is 2003 and the Forest Functional level is Windows 2000, is that normal? I thought it would say Server 2008?
 
Looks like you have just transfered the roles and now have a new domain server up and running. Upping the functional level is something that you have to do separately.
 
LoStMaTt said:
Looks like you have just transfered the roles and now have a new domain server up and running. Upping the functional level is something that you have to do separately.
Click to expand...

i did not transfer the roles yet. Just setup the DC and let it replicate.
 
If i set this new Server 2008 as the main DC and make another back Server 2008 DC then take the old Server 2003 DC's offline, will there be any problems with my exchange 2003 server?
 
Ok i just read that all domain controllers have to be Server 2008 in order to raise the functional level. So i should not do that until all my DC's are Server 2008?
 
AMD_Gamer said:
Ok i just read that all domain controllers have to be Server 2008 in order to raise the functional level. So i should not do that until all my DC's are Server 2008?
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Correct, no legacy DCs in the mix..Must demote/remove any prior DCs that were running 2K3 or 2K...or god forbid, NT4.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Correct, no legacy DCs in the mix..Must demote/remove any prior DCs that were running 2K3 or 2K...or god forbid, NT4.
Click to expand...

Ok got it. Now what about a Server 2003 machine running Exchange Server 2003? Will the exchange server have any problems with this? Only DC's i need to worry about?

Thanks for all the help!
 
Today i transferred all the roles to my new Server 2008 DC then changed the IP on the server 2008 machine to what the old server was. I then demoted the old Server 2003 DC with dcpromo and shut it off. I got scared because the exchange server stopped working even after pointing all the Recipient Update Service options to the new DC. Luckily a server restart fixed everything and it seems to be working great now!
 
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