RE: Advice on Migration path from Windows NT to Windows 2003

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

From: Rebecca Chen [MSFT] (v-rebc_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 03/15/05 

Date: Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:16:47 GMT

Hi Tony,

I think your plan is quite good. However, I have some suggestions slightly
different from your plan. Please see my comments:

 In Phase 1 at client side, after you build up the BDC, I suggest promote
the BDC to the PDC at this time, which will demote the original PDC as the
BDC.

Implement DNS , DHCP , WINS etc

Backup the original PDC (now is BDC) and keep running it in the network
since it is the file and printer server.

Migrate Windows NT 4.0 SAM into Windows 2003 Active Directory

Patch Windows 2003 server with latest Microsoft Critical Updates

Then you can follow the phase 3 and 4 to finish the upgrade process.

Recovery path is not the problem, if you want to be back to NT environment,
please remove the win2k3 server from the network and then promote the BDC
to PDC.

One thing you need to pay attention is that the NT4 emulator registry key.
You can add the key before you in-place upgrade NT to win2k3 server on the
loan machine. For more information about the NT4 emulator, please see the
following article:

Windows 2000-Based Clients Connect Only to the Domain Controller That
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;284937

How to Prevent Overloading on the First Domain Controller During Domain
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=298713

IMPORTANT: If you add the NT4emualtor registry key on the loan machine, you
CANNOT transfer FSMO role from loan machine to the HP machine. therefore, I
suggest you run this loan machine for a period of time to make sure the
network is no problem and then remove this key, add HP machine to the
network, use the following steps etc.

If you forget to add NT4emulator and want to be back to NT enviornment, you
need to re-join the clients to NT domain.

With regards to the shares, you can use many methods to achieve this goal.
GUI tool called FSMT is easy to use; please see the following link to get
more information:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/upgrading/nt4/tooldocs/msfsc.mspx

You can keep the original PDC (now BDC) running in the network to play the
file server role, or migrate all shares from BDC to the new HP win2k3
server. NOTE: The shares will be retained on the BDC server.

If there is anything unclear, please let me know.

HTH!

Best regards,

Rebecca Chen

MCSE2000 MCDBA CCNA

Microsoft Online Partner Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

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