Has anyone here upgrade vanilla server to SBS?

Y

YeOldeStonecat

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As many SBS installs that I've done....I've never upgraded an existing vanilla server OS to SBS.

Client has existing 2000 Server running AD. Actually it's Enterprise Edition..not standard. Running a domain for 20-ish peeps....some WAN to it.

I think the prior tech build this network from his Action Pack...why else use Enterprise Edtion, and the Dell workstations he ordered had XP Home on it..LOL...he installed 2Kpro on top of that..leaving the boot.ini file showing dual boot. LOL. And Office 2K Premium Edition. All smells of Action Pack to me. :rolleyes:

Anyways...it's a non-profit client..so I got them squared away with Techsoup.org. Them being heavy e-mail users....I got them to get SBS2K3 Premium. And Windows XP pro and Office 2K3 Ent Edition. So their licensing is all good.

Now...the server is still decent..well..sorta..the prior guy got them a Dell PE 600sc or something light...a P4 2.something...512 megs..unfortunately IDE drives. Yeah..I'm not a fan of IDE drives..but..again, it's a smaller office...20 something nodes..but vary rarely are there even more than 10 on at a time....a rotation going on there.

So I plan on stuffing the server with RAM...replacing the hard drives with 8 meg cache WD Cavs or Seagate 'Cudas. And doing an inplace "upgrade" of 2KServer to SBS2K3.

I haven't been able to find much in resources...I see "Swing it" migration kits to "replace" existing servers..but I'm keeping (or at least hope to) the same server and directory. Has anyone done an upgrade of this sort?
 
I have a few times from 2000/2003 Standard Edition and not had problems other than one installation that had a very broken Exchange installation. Exchange was broken before I began the upgrade(I didn't find out until later that it hadn't worked in a few weeks, go figure). It became pretty much unsalvageable after the upgrade, but that would have been kind of expected had I known about it.

I've done probably 5-6 this way now and haven't had any directory problems at all. It auto updates the schema and everything.

I do remember seeing something on experts exchange about problems with IIS after doing an upgrade though. I haven't experienced that, but only two of the servers I have done it on have had IIS running.
 
I don;t know if you can upgrade from 2000 Enterprise to SBS. ADPREP might do it, I don't know. I have done an in place upgrade from Windows 2000 Server to Windows 2003 R2 Standard, but never to SBS. The lisencing issues between the two may hinder you, like if you were upgrading SBS to Server Standard, it just won't work.

EDIT0: This may help you, though:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/upgrade/default.mspx

EDIT1: In this link, is seems that you can't upgrade Windows Server 2000 Advanced (I am assuming this is it, since there is not "Enterprise" 2000 Edition) to SBS 2003, only to Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810613/en-us
 
Yea I'm thinking you would have to do a full reload(which isn't so bad as you can make sure you have everything setup the way you want it. As far as IDE drives go just make sure you have a raid 1 going on and you should be fine(raid 5 would be nice but 1 would prob be fine). Depending on what they are doing you may want to see about trying to get them to let you build the server over and bump of the hardware some. How much ram does the board support? Figure 2 gigs if it is an older p4 board. This should be fine for some stuff but I'm seeing a want for 3 or 4 gigs on a lot of the sbs2k3 boxes we have at client sites. As far as an enterprise copy of server it could be action pack but I would bet that it is a promotional sample or a pirate copy. Office is prob Pirate and the windows 2000 stuff could be as well. Thing that gets me if they came with xp home why not run xp pro instead of running 2k? Also if you are going through all that crap and upgrading to xp and all just rebuild the domain. Personaly I would just be starting as Fresh as possible.
 
Can't upgrade from Enterprise to SBS which leads to two options:

1. Wipe the existing server, reload with SBS, and rebuild active directory.

2. "Swing Migration" - We have used this method sucessfully to migrate clients without having to rebuild AD.

You could use vmware or virtual server to create a temporary DC to do a swing migration which would preserve AD.

Swing migration would probably be the best option if you didn't want to rebuild AD. If you have questions or need more info about a swing migration, feel free to ask.
 
Yeah yer right about Enterprise Edition...it's Windows 2000 Advanced Server...had my names wrong...cought me on a goof. :D

Trying to stay away from the full reload...as the WAN environment makes getting around to everyone in a reasonable time period will be difficult.

It's a non-profit Womens Shelter....so they really don't have much to spend, I have a monthly contract with them...looking like this project will utilize my contracted hours into next year. BUT..obviously functionality of the network is key...I need to do this upgrade relatively overnight.

So it's a battle of A) versus B)
A) Complete rebuild
B) Some migration technique such as the Swing It kit.

Main location..10-12 worksations on Motorola Canopy for a 2 meg pipe from our building
One shelter...another 4 workstations...10 meg connection to main office using phone line crossing street
Second shelter..on DSL from our building..so VPN'd to same network main building/shelter are on. 3x workstations there. VPN tunnel strong as the upload..384
Third location...same DSL/VPN setup, 1x workstation there.
2x more courthouse offices coming up on DSL/VPN solution soon...not deployed yet....will be 1x laptop at each.

SJ...does Swing It allow me to rename active directory in the process? Prior guy did some abbreviation.com which I don't like..doesn't matter much..but if I have the chance to change it to my preferred <their web/mail domain>.local....I would.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
SJ...does Swing It allow me to rename active directory in the process? Prior guy did some abbreviation.com which I don't like..doesn't matter much..but if I have the chance to change it to my preferred <their web/mail domain>.local....I would.
Click to expand...

Last time I looked into renaming a domain for a client we ended up doing a rebuild as we tried it on a test box first and it didn't seem to work right. If you use swing it you can trasnfer the ad but I wouldn't bet on being able to rename it without a some issues. If you wanted to try it I would reload to 2k3, use swing to rebuild ad, run third program(sorry can't think of the name off the top of my head) to try to rename the domain. After a few reboots on the client machines it should pick up.

Offtopic how was Techsoup.org? I have a client that could prob use them.
 
Stonecat, I would just go ahead and take one day and just do a reinstall with SBS. I wouldn't want to fuck with trying to swing it, because you want to change the domain name anyway. I think it would take a lot less time to just do a clean install, even though you will have to play with the clients.
 
swatbat said:
Offtopic how was Techsoup.org? I have a client that could prob use them.
Click to expand...

Fantastic...I have a lot of non-profit clients that use it. They purchase software for practically just the cost of the CD media kit..and shipping.

Example...SBS2K3 Premiun for like 70 bucks...20 bucks for each 5 cal add-on pack
MS Office 2K3 Pro...20 bucks each.

I'm not a fan of Symantecs corporate edition antivirus anymore..but they participate also..it's very cheap

Signing up isn't bad...ordering 'n stuff is good..but if you need to get a hold of someone for help..WOW...I had a client had to do that once..took them months of trying.

There are certain qualifications to be able to purchase through them......I believe churches and health care industry..but each "contributor" has their rules.
 
On the topic of renames: The functionality is there is 2003, but MS doesn't recommend it be performed on anything other than a test environment. If you read between the lines, it means some stuff can seriously screw up.

In my testing of a cleanly built lab environment, it didn't go so well. I had things that still looked for the old name. I don't recommend doing a rename. It's better to start from scratch that way you know it will be right.
 
MorfiusX said:
On the topic of renames: The functionality is there is 2003, but MS doesn't recommend it be performed on anything other than a test environment. If you read between the lines, it means some stuff can seriously screw up.

In my testing of a cleanly built lab environment, it didn't go so well. I had things that still looked for the old name. I don't recommend doing a rename. It's better to start from scratch that way you know it will be right.
Click to expand...

Care to give a link to the MS writeup?
 
MorfiusX said:
On the topic of renames: The functionality is there is 2003, but MS doesn't recommend it be performed on anything other than a test environment. If you read between the lines, it means some stuff can seriously screw up.

In my testing of a cleanly built lab environment, it didn't go so well. I had things that still looked for the old name. I don't recommend doing a rename. It's better to start from scratch that way you know it will be right.
Click to expand...

This is why we just rebuild the domain. Same issues.
 
swatbat said:
This is why we just rebuild the domain. Same issues.
Click to expand...

I agree. I just upgraded a Windows NT 4.0 domain to Windows Server 2003 R2 domain, I just created a new domain name, and installed the server. Of course, we had to touch all 70 machines, but we got it done in one day.
 
AMD[H]unter said:
I agree. I just upgraded a Windows NT 4.0 domain to Windows Server 2003 R2 domain, I just created a new domain name, and installed the server. Of course, we had to touch all 70 machines, but we got it done in one day.
Click to expand...

If you don't want to rename the domain the a swing migration can work fine. If you want to rename the domain then just do a full rebuild. In the OP's case he didn't set it up and has had other issues so I would still prob do a rebuild so I know everything is set the way I want it.
 
I second the swing, done that several times myself.

Of course the AD (or NT4 domain) had 300+ users, so it would have taken days to get everything right again.
 
0ldman said:
I second the swing, done that several times myself.

Of course the AD (or NT4 domain) had 300+ users, so it would have taken days to get everything right again.
Click to expand...

Can someone give me some more info on this swing method? It seems like it would be a pita, but I would like to read up on it.
 
I was setting up new servers, all I did was join the AD as a server, in NT 4 join as a BDC, upgrade to PDC, then do whatever was needed to the old PDC, reinstall, hardware, Win2k migration, then join the old PDC back to the domain/AD.

I'd bring along an old POS computer from the house to do this rather than rebuild an AD or NT4 domain, unless the previous install was completely screwed.

I missed that about renaming, and I honestly don't remember if you can. I know you have the option when going from NT4 to 2000 or back to NT4, but 2000 and 2003 use the same AD setup, so little conversion is required.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
SJ...does Swing It allow me to rename active directory in the process? Prior guy did some abbreviation.com which I don't like..doesn't matter much..but if I have the chance to change it to my preferred <their web/mail domain>.local....I would.
Click to expand...

Sorry to get back so late.

As far as renaming the domain, the Swing it kit does not provide any documentation on performing that task as it has risks.

If all you have is a basic AD domain with no Exchange, SQL, or other servers then domain renaming is relatively easy process once you read through the documentation and summarize the steps.

Personally I have done two domain renames for clients and have not had any problems. In each case they only had a single server where we were introducing a brand new server. Microsoft has some very detailed documentation here on domain rename.

Be aware that unless you have physical access to all domain connected computers a domain rename can have as many problems with remote computers as a wipe and reinstall.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
It's a kit someone made..basically a tweaked ADMT from what I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong)

They push it a this well known SBS site..
http://www.smallbizserver.net/Default.aspx

This is the tool..called "Swing It"
http://www.sbsmigration.com/
Click to expand...

Definitely not a tweaked ADMT since the swing can be performed without using such tools. ADMT *can* be part of the process, but is not required depending on the circumstances.

Fill out the form and read their Technical Reviewers guide. It will give you a high level overview of the process.

A warning though, although you can make a very educated guess about the process, you absolutey need the details in the kit in order to do the upgrade successfully and without issues. There are quite a few gotchas that if not properly planned for, will cause you and the client unneeded downtime.
 
Honestly, for only 20 or so nodes on the network, a wipe and install seems like a good option. To make things a little easier for yourself, you might consider...
(and I know, this isn't within the realms of what's allowed by Microsoft's licensing, but I'm answering for the sake of tech, not a piracy debate)

Use VMware on a spare box to throw up a copy of win2k3 server. Setup your AD as you'll want it to be, adding users, appropriate domain name, etc. Take the first part of your day to migrate your 20 clients to the new domain with the understanding they'll have the afternoon off.
Next, plow down the old AD server, build it up w/ SBS, join to "existing" new domain, then remove services/demote your VMware box. All in all I'd rate that work at less than 7 hours on-site.

This is, of course, assuming there's nothing really crazy about your existing server in terms of specialized apps, SQL, Exchange, etc. A day's worth of work to clean up a network of that size ain't bad. Heck, I've done this for a school in a weekend (5 servers total, 120 nodes) and that included all the squirrely software schools use.
 
DarkOne_BW said:
This is, of course, assuming there's nothing really crazy about your existing server in terms of specialized apps, SQL, Exchange, etc.
Click to expand...

Nothing unusual on it...basic infrastructure (DC, DHCP, DNS, blah blah) file shares, print shares, users folders that I've mapped their My Docs to, .and the NOD32 Enterprise Edition RAS/RAC.

Thanks for the thoughts and inputs everyone...going to tackle this mid Sept.
 
YeOldeStonecat said:
Nothing unusual on it...basic infrastructure (DC, DHCP, DNS, blah blah) file shares, print shares, users folders that I've mapped their My Docs to, .and the NOD32 Enterprise Edition RAS/RAC.

Thanks for the thoughts and inputs everyone...going to tackle this mid Sept.
Click to expand...

Good luck, buddy!

Also, thanks for the links on "Swinging it".... That was some good reading.
 
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