changing PDC

[garwain]

I have a windows 2000 network with 8 servers, all running windows 2000 server. S1 is the PDC. I want to install a new server to replace S1.

From what I have read, my understanding is that I need to do a dcpromo on the new server S9, then on S1 run dcpromo to remove it, and it will replicate any remaining data out.

Anyone have any preperation guides or checklists that I should follow, or any additional steps that are recommended? Also, how to I make sure that S9 will become the PDC if there are other controllers already in the domain?

Thanks. I'm more of a linux admin, but ended up with a general maintenance contract for a windows shop. If something goes wrong, I am confident I can recover without major problems, but since I'm not specialized in windows servers, I want to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.

 

[LWComputingMVP]

Is this new server going to be a Windows 2000 or 2003 or 2003 R2 server?

You should understand there is no such thing as a PDC in Active Directory. There is a PDC emulator, but strictly speaking the NT4 concept of PDC is pretty much no more. Active Directory has 5 FSMO roles, typically, they are all on the FIRST DC or the NT4 Upgraded PDC. However, they can be moved to any other DC and they can be split up so they are on different servers.

You should NOT let Windows force the FSMO changes. It's much safer to manually move the roles using the various tools to do so. In addition, you should make sure at least one other server in the domain is a Global Catalog (GC) server. (My recommendation is 2 GCs per site, though depending who you ask, I've seen people say 1 per site and others say every DC should be a GC (in my opinion that creates potentially too much replication traffic)).

More information on the FSMO roles and transferring them, please see:

http://www.petri.co.il/transferring_fsmo_roles.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313994

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234790

http://www.svrops.com/svrops/documents/fsmo.htm

I would strongly recommend before you go doing this on a client's systems, setup a test environment - even a VMWare or Virtual PC/Virtual Server test environment. Then do it a few times so you are familiar with it.