Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of Euan Vatcher
Euan Vatcher

asked on

Migrating Server 2008 Foundation (physical) to Win Server 2012 r2 std (VM)

I took over a small business company's network infratructure with Server 2008 Foundation and I would like to migrate to a new Windows Server 2012 r2.

The Server 2008 Foundation is a DC with AD / DHCP / DNS / File & Print Server roles. I would like to transfer these roles to the
new server with Win Server 2012 r2 std OS. My plan is to join the new server to the old DC, promote it as DC, and transfer roles to it, demote old server and power off.

However, there was an older server (Windows 2003) which is no longer in the office and it was the current operations master. The server 2003 was the PDC. When I open AD Domains and Trusts I get this error:
"You cannot modify domain or trust info because a PDC emulator cannot be contacted.."

Maybe the FSMO roles wasn't transferred over from 2003 to 2008 properly? I don't know.

How can I move forward to setup the new server and transfer roles, etc.? Can someone point me to the right direction please. If you have questions about other info on the current Windows server 2008 foundation, please let me know and I would be happy to provide more info.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of David Johnson, CD
David Johnson, CD
Flag of Canada image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of Joe Mika
Joe Mika

David is correct, you will need to seize the rolls.  The other option if you have a missing domain controller that should be cleaned up (all sorts of fun with ADSI edit and sites and services) would be to create a new domain all together and join everything to the new domain.  For a small office of a few workstations it is sometimes nice to start from scratch.  This way you quickly clean up all the old computers and users that are no longer members of the domain that the previous people never cleaned up.