Re: Paul Bergson

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I'm not Mr. Bergson, but I'm going to answer anyway (sorry Paul)... ;-)

> Are there any things to watch out for?

Yes. You must perform a metadata cleanup in the live environment ASAP, and
you must also perform a FSMO role seizure in the dev environment as well as
a metadata cleanup of all the other DCs.

Here's the KB:
-- http://support.microsoft.com/?id=216498


Note. Bind to a working DC and remove the one that's been removed.


> Do you sync dns with AD?

Well, this depends. If you use AD-Integrated DNS this is all done for you
when you promote and replicate. Simply point at self (once you've
successfully promoted and replicated) and you're good to go. Otherwise, you
can create a secondary or just create a new zone.


> Do you use imaging software to clone your hdd before demoting, or do you
> just use ntbackup to save the system state?

DO NOT USE IMAGING. Although, in this example, there's not going to be
problems, any imaged DCs in the live environment will cause lots of
problems - some of which will be tough to diagnose. As a matter of
principal, to avoid future mistakes, do not use imaging.

You also don't need to backup anything, but if you favour the DR route you
should take a full backup of the boot partition and a System State backup.


> Can the machine be re-used on the production environment if it is wiped
> and a new OS installed?

Yes, of course. Doing this is creating a new machine.


> Or will a rename do?

Not by itself. If you were to demote AD and then SYSPREP the server you
could reintroduce into the live. Otherwise, a clean install is required.


--
Paul Williams
Microsoft MVP - Windows Server - Directory Services
http://www.msresource.net | http://forums.msresource.net


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