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RichFlag for United States of America

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Windows 2012R2 Server as new Domain Controller conversion

Hi,
I have a Windows 2003 SBS that has been in use for a long time, and is where I set up the users and the Active Directory services. Last year I added a Windows 2012 R2 Server and moved all the data shares to it, and installed the AD Roles, but never converted it to the Primary Domain Controller. Well, today, due to a power failure, the 2003 server crashed and had to be rebooted several time, and finally started, sort of...

The users can still log in, but I cannot access it with Remote Desktop. I can connect to it, but it hangs with a blank screen and never starts explorer.exe after my login. So, it is time to decommission it and start using only the new server. I have read instructions on how to enable and promote the new server to the Active Directory, but I am hesitant to finish the procedure in the instructions to enable this as I am not sure what happens to the old user accounts. Do I have to recreate them manually and if so, will the workstations still be able to log in to the Domain (I would keep the same domain if possible)? I do have the user's MyDocuments, etc. backed up and thankfully do not use an onsite Exchange Server.

Any advise would be appreciated.
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David Johnson, CD
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I agree it is time to retire it, but just worried about starting the transfer process and finding that the old machine is not talking and the new one is unable to get the use accounts. Do you happen to know if this process can be cancelled if I start it and find it cannot connect to the old machine? I would feel a lot better if I could log in to the old machine and see what was going on.
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Sorry for the slow response getting back, but I was able to get most of the process done, including DNS, DHCP and AD, and am seeing the users showing up in the AD on the 2012 machine. The only part I am not sure what to do is probably what Shaun refers to in his Step 2, "move FSMOs to new server".

I am stuck at the easiest way to move the user's documents, etc. which are stored on the 2003 server, to the new server. I only have about 10 users, so I simply copied all their files from the 2003 server to a spot on the 2013 server as a backup. Not sure how to create the user directories on the new server and then associate the new directories with the users, however.
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Thanks to all for your help. Marking this as solved - Best and Assisted is hard to decide, so I am going with First is Best and the rest are Assisted.

I am setting up a similar configuration in my lab with a new Windows 2012 install in addition to my current Windows 2003 SBS and am going to try this on my own accounts and see what happens when I shut off the 2003 server. I'll post the results for anyone following this thread.