asked on

Joining Windows Server 2012 to a single DC Server 2003 Domain

We have a stand alone Windows 2003 R2 SP2 Domain Controller serving 10 Windows XP users. Now we are replacing all the systems with a Server 2012 standard server and 6 new Windows 7 Pro workstations. 4 workstations will remain XP pro.

I have racked and fired up the new Dell R420, added a static IP, joined the domain and all is well. Next I wanted to Add the Domain Controller role, so I did so via Server Manager, the Active Directory tools all work fine and I can see all the domain object like domain users, computers and group policies. However when i run the next step of "Make this server a domain controller" it tells me "Verification of replica failed. The forest functional level is Windows 2000. etc" Two days ago I did raise it from a 2000 to 2003 domain and also forest level. I did them both and rebooted the old server. It still gave me the same when i attempted to run the DC upgrade. I uninstalled the AD tools, rebooted, reinstalled them and it still won't see the Forest as a 2003 forest.

Any idea would be greatly appreciated....

Member_2_4839798

2003 is the lowest functional level server 2012 will support, I'd say ensure that the 2012 DC has gracefully been removed, a meta data clean-up has also been run an simply start again.

I hope this helps.

MC

ron69

ASKER

Thanks Michael for the suggestion. I think what you are stating is to go to Remove Roles and uncheck the Active Directory tools, reboot and start again. If i am correct then yes i have tried that. However if there is some other way to restart the "Make this server a domain controller" portion then i would really appreciate a little insight on how to perform that piece.

The DC role never really started do to the checks it does and the error provided. The error happens long before it will start any DC promotion processes.

Nagendra Pratap Singh

Well your AD may still have the old DC parts left over.
That cannot cleaned up by removing roles.

Check alerts on the DC and read the following.
http://www.petri.co.il/delete_failed_dcs_from_ad.htm

And do recheck your forest and domain levels.

ron69

ASKER

Thanks again, I ran the ntdsutil and it only list the one 2003 server DC. So no meta data junk was in there as i expected since i never got past the checks when running "Make this server a domain controller" on the 2012 server to attempt to join the 2003 domain.

Member_2_4839798

Great, so on the assumption that the required firewall ports are open on your 2012 Server please try again to promote the 2012 server to a DC.

ron69

ASKER

I am going to try and run the forest and domain prep directly on the 2003 DC first, then try to Promote the 2012 server. I will post the results tomorrow.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

ron69

membership

Create a free account to see this answer

Signing up is free and takes 30 seconds. No credit card required.

See answer

ron69

ASKER

Thank you for bouncing ideas with me, i really appreciate the great folks in this forum.

Member_2_4839798

No worries :) glad it's all sorted.
MC

ron69

ASKER

I got this working. If you raise a Windows server Forest and Domain level from one to another you can confirm it shows as such in Adsiedit.msc by referring to this article.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322692 . This stinking article took me 2 days to stumble across but it solve the issue.