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Installing windows 2003 DC in the stable win2k domain

hi!

I'm having a very stable win2k domain with one forest and about 8 DCs world wide. All offices connect to each other using VPN tunnels through Cisco PIX firewall. So far, it is working great. Recently, we decided to gradually upgrade our domain from win2k to windows2003.

My question is can I just install windows 2003 and promote it to become a DC in my domain? will it co-exist without any problem with other win2k DCs?

If you have any online document to point me to, i really appreciate it.

thanks in advance
Vayoha

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

JamesDS

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What90

Hi vayoha,

This is a nice guide:
http://commodore.ca/windows/windows_2003_upgrade.htm

vayoha

ASKER

thanks both for your helps. James, do i need to adprep on all DC?

vayoha

JamesDS

vayoha

No, only on the DCs holding your Schema and Infrastructure FSMO roles:

On the schema master, at the command prompt, type "adprep /forestprep"
On the infrastructure master, at the command prompt, type "adprep /domainprep"

Read the readme on the CD carefully and it takes you through the whole procedure step by step

Cheers

JamesDS

What90

Only thing to add to James post is have a full (and tested) backup for the DC's.
99% of the time everything works like a charm. Check the event logs after each step and allow time for the changes to take place thoughout your Forest.

I haven't yet had to use my roll back plans for an AD upgrade, but better safe that sorry!

vayoha

ASKER

I have two DC for each site. Do i still need to do the backup? I have one DC in Shanghai office doesn't replicate since two weeks ago. I got an error in the log saying the DNS name of replication server from US office isn't resolved through DNS. But when I do nslookup, i can get the IP of the other server. Is there other place i can look into in order to fix this issue?

thanks again,
Duc.

z969307

I have 2 DC's in a small LAN of 12 servers, the consultant who setup made both of the GC's as there were issues of which i am not aware of. Is there a way to find out which one of my DC"s is a Schema Master ? Could both me Schema Masters ?