Upgrade Windows 2003 Standard DC to Windows 2008 R2

[guest]

Hi guys, I'm hoping someone could provide me with some assistance with the following scenario.

I currently have a single DC, single domain running Windows 2003 Standard (32-bit) which I am planning to migrate to Windows 2008 Standard R2 (64-bit)
After doing some research it would appear that an in-place upgrade might be my best bet, however this would mean I wouldn't be able to upgrade using the 64-bit version of Server 2008 due to architecture differences.

The other option is to simply rebuild the DC with a fresh copy of 2008 Server R2 (64-bit) however I would like to know what kind of impact this would have on my Exchange 2003 server and workstations If i was to use the same NETBIOS name for the DC and the same domain name with respect to SID's etc.

The DC also has IIS 6 installed with PHP 5.2, MySQL and Activestate Perl. It is also acting as a WINS server. All data on my RAID 5 array has been backed up completely and I have taken a System State backup. It serves files for six Windows 7 workstations and a couple of Linux boxes.

Given the options, It would be nice to go 64-bit as this would certainly give me more expansion in terms of addressable RAM for future upgrades.
I should mention now that although this configuration isn't classed as 'best practice' the DC is being used at home for testing purposes, so therefore the option of introducing new hardware isn't feasible.

Thanks for any help in advance!

[guest]

Your VM server which wil be your domain controler should have a different server name(Netbios Name) but the domain name and Netbios should be the same. For example abc.com (Netbios Name "ABC") . There shold be any issue, just add the new domain controller to be an additional domain controller int he exisitign domain.

This guide should assis in adding an additonal domain controller in exisitng domain

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 8032(WS.10).aspx


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[guest]

You need at least a second DC/DNS/GC to keep the domain, if only one DC is installed in the domain that also get the FSMO roles BEFORE starting with datacopy/demoting/formatting the existing DC and then reinstalling it with Windows server 2008 R2.

Before adding the new machine as DC remove the demoted server from ADD UC and AD sites and services also and check all DNS zones and the DNS name server tabs on the zone properties.

DCs as VM should be avoided to have FSMO roles, so move them back to the physical machine after get it running again.

Before starting to change run the support tools on the existing DC to be sure everything is healthy:

dcdiag /v /c /d /e /s:dcname >c:\dcdiag.txt
netdiag /v >c:\netdiag.txt [from each DC, netdiag may work but isn't supported with Windows server 2008 and higher]
repadmin /showrepl dc* /verbose /all /intersite >c:\repl.txt (if more then one DC exists)
dnslint /ad /s "DCipaddress" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321045)


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