NT4 to W2K. upgrade or start from scratch 2

[jatkinson]

Current setup:

Server A PDC NT4.0
Server B BDC NT4.0
Server C BDC NT4.0 Exchange 5.5

I want to migrate my network over to W2K with AD and also upgrade Exchange Server to 2000.

I also have a couple of spare servers and was going to build a W2K AD server from scratch on one of the servers and install Exchange 2000 on the other.

Would it be possible using the methods explained above to put spare server 1 on my existing network and then promote it to a NT4.0 PDC, take it off the network and upgrade to W2K AD???

Would it also be possible to install spare server 2 onto the network and put a 2nd copy of Exchange 5.5 onto it, replicate the email accounts etc and then take this server out of the network and upgrade it to Exchange 2000??? Is it best to start off with Exch 5.5 on a NT4 or W2K server if so???

Also, instead of doing the above, if I built a new domain from scratch on the spare servers would I be able to simply swap the servers over if the old domain (NT4.0) and the new domain (W2K) had the same domain name and the server IP addresses were the same or would I have to go round each client PC and reconfigure them to log onto the new domain even though the domain name and IP addresses for the servers are the same??? I'm thinking possible trust relationship problems etc.

Also, where would the DNS server fit into this? Should the DNS server be a separate server? I assume DNS would be set up on the first server to have AD installed on it, is this correct?

Any advice on this subject would be great

Many thanks

 

[Rules2liveby]

1. Yes - take a spare server, promote it to PDC then upgrade it, then transfer all data of the old PDC, blat it to Windows 2000, promote it, transfer all roles and data to it then remove the 'staging server'.

2. Easiest way I know is to use the exmerge utilities for 5.5 and 2000 to backup the data from 5.5, install Exch2000 from scratch and Exmerge the data back in.

3. With the staging server you should keep all the security information, so keep the domain name the same.