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David Dotan Sofer

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inplace upgrade from Windows 2003 R2 to 2012

hello,

I needs to inplace upgrade from Windows 2003 R2 to 2012.
can you please explain the procedure.
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John
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David Dotan Sofer

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can I upgrade 2003 r2 => 2008 r2 => 2012 r2 ?
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You most likely can follow the proper upgrade path for it to work alright, but like John said above, it's likely to break stuff and cause unwanted bloat like secondary and tertiary Windows and Program Files Directories. Plus who knows what could go wrong with anything else in the system, software built for 2003 may not run, services and configuration mismatches, etc...

The best thing to do is do multiple Backups... Like... Data Backups and then a Full Image with dd or ghost or guymager, that way you can always restore to 2003 as a last resort if needed. Then you install 2012 and restore your data/services how you had everything on 2012, but that isn't even guaranteed to be less of a headache depending on what services you used on 2003 and what versions. You're probably better off trying 2008 R2 instead of 2012 to be honest. You could always try 2012 First, if you run into issue you should try to fix them, but if you can't you would then try 2008 and repeat that process. There are a lot of changes from 2003 to 2012, and even from 2003 to 2008/R2 for example the transition from FRS to DFSR handling replication of the SYSVOL. Upgrading from 2003 to 2008 R2 will keep your NTFRS, so part of the upgrade process must at least include:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd640019(WS.10).aspx

As Per:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff384840(v=vs.85).aspx

Not to mention any other major services that get migrated through the upgrade process.
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A common (and good) suggestion is to turn your existing server into a VM, install 2012r2, set up Hyper-V, and then run the 2003 server as a VM under 2012r2 (with the 2012r2 host as a Workgroup).  Then create a new VM with 2012r2, join the 2003 domain, and migrate over.

Just to be safe, I'd remove the original drive(s) before installing 2012r2 as a host.  This will ensure that you don't damage what you already have.  If you are short of drives, you could do the new installation on a temporary drive until you confirmed that the VMs were working properly.
Assuming your physical server has a 64-bit capable CPU and your Windows 2003 R2 install is 64-bit as well, then you could upgrade from 2003 R2 (64-bit) to Windows 2008 R2 (64-bit) to Windows 2012 R2 (64-bit).

However, if Window 2003 R2 is not 64-bit then you cannot perform an in-place upgrade because of the differing architectures.

With that said, just as John stated, I would never encourage an in-place upgrade.  Too many issues with the process that, IMO, are unreliable and could end up being disasterous.

If you have a virtualization platform, build a new 2012 R2 server and go through the process of migrating AD, DNS, etc. to it.

References...
Virtualization is always a good idea if you're willing to learn a little and commit your hardware to ESXi or Hyper-V.
You also have to ask if the old hardware is capable of running a newer OS.... It isn't just speed issues but some older hardware won't have newer drivers available...