Server Replacement - Domain Upgrade 2

[MasterRacker]

We've won a contract that involves replacing the only server in an NT4 domain. We will be installing the new server with Win2003 Small Business Server. This is a small network with about 15 clients and a handful of printers, but the clients are using Outlook and Exchange for e-mail, which will have to be migrated or recreated on the new server as well.

The problem is that this is our first job with Win2003 Server. I've heard that there are a number of gotchas when upgrading an NT domain to 2003. From other things I've read, I'm thinking the most problem free method will be to set up the server as a new domain, plug it into their network, recreate the users, join their machines to the new domain, move files etc. The clients are mostly Win2K Pro with a couple of Win98 boxes.

What other showstoppers might we be facing? Can anyone throw out some good resources for further research? Thanks.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[mlichstein]

Hi!

This should get you started:

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...4990-8833-ed24f4da4289/SBS_MigratingSBS45.doc

 

[DCBennett]

Hi,

We've just done a similar conversion.
New domain for W2K3 SBS
Remove clients from old domain and join new via SBS wizard from browser. (

http://servername/connectcomputer)

Transfer files via copy to workstation and back off again. (As old server was NT4.5 SBS and we didn't want to let them fight)
Transfer email via PST export (exmerge)
Apply required file level security.

Only gotcha's we got:-
exmerge was failing until we turned server AV software off.
W98 needs to be manually joined to domain
Needed to switch off disk quota's as some users had >1G
Need to switch off exchange limits as some users > 200M

Other than that, it works!

Hope this helps
David
P.S. The MS document is very good though

 

[MasterRacker]

Looks like a good, detailed starting point. Thanks.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[dkediger]

That's exactly the process I followed last September. Worked well.

I acquired a new switch as I was doing the upgrade and actually physically moved workstations from one "network" to the other.

 

[davidwilson11]

We are about to go down this road as well one of our clients has installed a number of windows XP clients to the NT4 Domain and it is causing problems with network spped so it looks like the client will be getting an upgrade to SBS2003.

 

[pikk]

Hi All

Here's my two cents and a question.

From what I've read thus far...the easiest way to do this is to upgrade your BDC after you promote it. Essentially, I'm doing the same thing here but have not yet got to the Win2K3 stage. My method will involve synchronizing my BDC, clearing out old user accounts, old software etc. and then promote it to be the PDC. At which point I will take my original PDC off-line and run the upgrade on the newly promoted BDC. Should I run into a problem...I can simply take the Win2K3 system off-line and bring my old PDC back up and promote it back to a PDC.

Now my question is...is it possible to do this while my BDC is off-line? I would like to leave everything as is and simply take my bdc off-line, upgrade it and put it back on-line after the Win2k3 upgrade is complete. This way, I won't have to wait till the weekend to work on it.

Make sense?

Any tips or pointers would be helpful.

THANKS!

Pikk

 

[tfg13]

pikk,
That shouldn't be a problem. Upgrading with the BDC offline is not a bad idea (give you a chance to play around with the new features as well), just make sure you have all the latest patches ready to go.