I'm in the planning phase for migrating our Windows 2000 domain to Windows
2003 and had a few questions / concerns.

A little background on my network: Running two Windows 2000 DC's for a
single domain. Exchange 2003 is running on a Windows 2000 member server. I
have purchased two new identical servers that will become the new 2003 DC's.

My first concern is causing problems with our existing Exchange 2003 server
that is running on Windows 2000. I saw the Q article that addressed mangled
attributes in Exchange 2000 after running domainprep / forestprep but wanted
to make sure I wasn't missing anything for Exchange 2003. Has anyone had
problems with Exchange 2003 in your migration? Anything to watch out for?

My next concern is after I bring on the Windows 2003 servers and promote
them to domain controllers. My fear is demoting the old Windows 2000 AD
server's (I will be demoting two) and running in to problems (I don't have
any specific problems in mind just general issues that people might have run
in to). Again people who've gone through the migration process can you
please share your experience?

I've read through all of Microsoft's white papers on migrating to 2003 but
the papers never addressed a scenario if you have Exchange 2003. The papers
also don't mention pit falls to watch out for...

I would greatly appreciate feed back from those of you that have migrated
with a similar setup!

Thanks!!!

PS yes yes I will have current backups

It sounds like you've already done most of your homework in regards to adding
in the new DCs. As you've gathered the process is basically:

1. adprep /forestprep
2. adprep /domainprep
3. Promote 2003 DCs
4. Transfer FSOM roles
5. Demote 2000 DCs

If you've updated the domain schema when you installed exchange 2003 than
you shouldnt have to worry about the mangled attributes. To be certain you
may want to review what the attributes should be (they are in the KB article)
and browse your schema to ensure they are correct. Though you dont
neccisarily have to (since it can be corrected easily after the fact) if they
are not correctly updated than I would fix them before continuing.

I've done everything except for step 6 (I still have 10 2000 DCs) and havent
had any problems. If you have any other quesitons about when I went through
the process just ask.

Cheers,

Erik

"tracert" wrote:

Erik,

thanks for the response and sharing your experience.

You mentioned you where running both 2000 and 2003 servers with AD and I was
curious if you're able to take advantage of the features available within
2003 group policies. I'd really like to use Software restrictions for
example, is this something you can do when running both 2000 and 2003?

Thanks again for the help.

Ryan

"Erik Szewczyk [MVP]" wrote: