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Windows 2000 AD Upgrade

i haev a win 2000 ad environment that i inherited. I am now planning to upgrade the old outdated hardware that this runs on. I would also like to change the domain name it runs under as well as the company name has changed since it was installed.

Just wondering what people would suggest as a good seemless way of upgrading that would provide as little impact on end users as possible.

Cheers

ocon827679

In doing an upgrade from W2K to W2K3 AD you won't be able to change the domain name until the upgrade is finished and you set the forest/domain levels to W2K3. (There is a way to rename a W2K domain, basiically you have to be in mixed mode and you revert all of you dc's back to Windows NT, then do an upgrade. Bad idea if you have Exchange 2K or greater in the environment.) Once you get the domain to W2K3 then you can use the domain rename tool. Read the documentation about this throughly, because if you have Exchange in your environment, then there is another Exchange tool that must be run to ensure that you don't blow away your Exchange infrastructure.

Take a look at KB article 325379 for upgrading from W2K to W2K3. It talks about ensuring that your computers will be supported (checkupgradeonly) and also the adprep that you must run to prepare for W2K3 domain controllers. If you are going to use the R2 version of W2K3 there is another prep tool that must be run.

Once you've done you checking and other prep work, the upgrade is fairly straight-forward. Good luck.

kingcastle

ASKER

hi cheers for this, what about all the file and folder security i have and the groups if i change the domain name will the get all messed up.

Would it be a good idea to start with a fresh new dns?

cheers

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ocon827679

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kingcastle

ASKER

cheers