Running "dcpromo" on Exchange Server to remove current role as DC
My company was recently audited and one of the suggestions was to demote our exchange server from it role as a domain controller. There are currently two other servers that are domain controllers. My question is how do I accomplish this without causing any problems.
These are the servers that are currently Domain Controllers:
Main = Windows Server 2003
Backup = Windows Server 2003
Exchange = Windows 2000 - Exchange 2000
These are the servers that are currently Domain Controllers:
Main = Windows Server 2003
Backup = Windows Server 2003
Exchange = Windows 2000 - Exchange 2000
I've only seen Microsoft stating that changing the role of an Exchange 2003 server was not to be done (either promote or demote), but I never saw that same statement for Exchange 2000. I believe you can run dcpromo, but needless to say you have to make a backup of the machine.
Kris
Kris
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See about 1/2 way down, in this ExBPA article, regarding dcpromo on Exchange 2000.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/EXBPA/7423376e-686b-4cda-b90f-cf5cff4f8981.mspx
Personally, I would go with what Sembee said, whether or not it is Exchange 2000. However, Microsoft denotes that you can perform a DCPromo to remove the AD domain controller bits from an Exchange 2000 box.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/EXBPA/7423376e-686b-4cda-b90f-cf5cff4f8981.mspx
Personally, I would go with what Sembee said, whether or not it is Exchange 2000. However, Microsoft denotes that you can perform a DCPromo to remove the AD domain controller bits from an Exchange 2000 box.
Therefore to achieve what you want to do you would have to backup Exchange, remove Exchange, DCPROMO the machine out, reinstall Exchange, and restore the data.
The ideal way to reduce downtime would be to swing the data out to another machine so that the original machine can be dcpromo out, then rebuilt fresh.
Simon.