Upgrading a domain to W2008

[Phoenix]

I took the plunge the other day and upgraded my domain to a Windows 2008 domain, a pretty straightforward process for anyone who has done a 2000 - 2003 migration, I just wanted to jot down a few points for those who might never of done these things before


Firstly, before you can add a Windows Server 2008 domain controller, you have to prepare your existing AD for the inclusion of the new DC, now the new DC has some added bells and whistles so the Schema needs to be updated to be able to deal with this

we run the following command on the current schema master for the forest root domain

adprep.exe /forestprep

this will prepare the forest with the required schema updates
*be aware that if you have an x86 DC at present you can not use adprep.exe from the x64 CD as it will not work, you must use the x86 CD to perform this upgrade

next you must upgrade every domain that you wish to place windows server 2008 DCs in, for most people this will likely be a single domain

adprep.exe /domainprep

this will make your domain ready to accept Windows server 2008 domain controllers
technically, your domain is now a Windows Server 2008 domain, as all schema and domain updates have occurred, however you have no DC to make use of any of the new schema objects and features

now onto the fun part

in our Windows server 2008 system we have a number of roles we can add from Server Manager
we want to add the Active Directory Domain Services role, once this is complete we can go ahead and upgrade the server to a domain controller

Again in Server manager, we navigate to the roll and there will be lots of red marks, at the top there will be a message saying this system has not yet been promoted to a domain controller, click the link to resolve this by performing a dcpromo

The wizard is much like the 2k3 wizard, with a few bells and wishes, you will notice a checkbox on the first page of the wizard to use 'advanced mode' i did this so can't comment on the 'non advanced mode' installation

the wizard itself is straightforward enough, it informed me that I could not install a Read Only Domain Controller at this time due to some prerequisite tasks having not been performed

not a major problem for me as I did not want a RODC anyway

Once the wizard completes, a reboot is required as expected, and a new Windows Server 2008 DC is born!

Now the next step for me is to transfer my FSMO roles and remove the windows 2003 DC from my network
with this complete I can probably upgrade to some flashy native mode I assume (isn't that always the way? lol)

This also means I will get rid of my last remaining physical server (apart from my firewall)
everything now runs on my VMware ESX Farm (running ESX 3.01)

The windows server 2008 firewall looks spanky good too, more on that when I play some more

[Tinus1959]

Starting to study for the 2008 server just yesterday.
Thanx for this write up!

[wagnerk]

Hi Mate, can I assume that you're running the beta version? Cause if you are and you've upgraded a live domain/forest and it works, then I'll do the same (soon).

-Ken

[Phoenix]

I cant really say its a 'live' system, its my home domain, which is used quite extensively for everything from VPN access to authenticated proxy rules, cant say it would be a major bust if it stopped working for a while though

I wouldnt recommend using it in a corporate live environment yet though