How to restore back to Windows 2000 after 2003 Forestprep?

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Does the schema version override the USN for replication within
AD?........

We recently upgraded to Windows 2003 but during the our test process
we tried to restore back to Windows 2000 after carrying out the
Forest and Domain prep but were not able to.

Several Microsoft documents dealing with the upgrade imply that by
taking a full backup of a Windows 2000 DC you can easily restore.
However none detail this process. I assumed that by carrying out an
authoritative restore in directory services restore mode this would
do this. However this gives a schema mismatch error

Tasks carried out in the upgrade were.
1. Move all FSMO roles onto one server.
2. Carry out full back up of this server.
3. Carry out the inetOrgPersonfix changes for our Exchange 2000
installation
4. Run adprep /forestprep and check that it has replicated.
5. Run adprep /domainprep and check that it has replicated.
At this point AD has a couple of Windows2003update containers and the

registry has the schema version as 1e (30)

I now want to restore this back to the point where the backup was
carried
out. So I
6. Boot the server up into directory services restore mode
7. Restore the system state data
8. Go into ntdsutil and carry out an authoritative restore and
increment
the version by 100000.
9. Checked AD and the registry - Windows2003update containers gone
and the schema version in the registry is back to d (13) -> I'm
happy that this DC is restored.
10. Boot it up normally and within a few minutes the server is back
at
schema version 30. It has been updated from the other domain
controllers.

I have repeated the process several times using much larger USN
version
increments during the authoritative restore but with no success. I
have also disabled inbound replication and tried to push the version
13 schema out on to the other DCs but get a schema version mismatch
error.

I would seem that schema version overrides the USN version in
determining the direction of replication. ie AD will always
replicated from the higher schema version irrespective of the USN
version numbers. I do not want to muck about with the schema version
number as this could completely screw up AD.

Any one any ideas how to restore back to W2K?

Cheers,

Doug

.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: Adprep
    ... If you execute this command both INBOUND and OUTBOUND replication is ... If you update the schema and the domain AS LONG AS REPLICATION IS DISABLED, ... restore to the state without the schema is to restore ALL DCs in the forest ... You need the Schema Master role to perform adprep /forestprep ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.active_directory)
  • Restore W2K after partial upgrade to W2003 - schema mismatch
    ... Carry out full back up of this server. ... I now want to restore this back to the point where the backup was carried ... schema version in the registry is back to 13 -> I'm happy that this DC is ... disabled inbound replication and tried to push the version 13 schema out on ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.setup_upgrade)
  • Re: AD Schema Restore
    ... What you should do is install a test DC into a separate AD site, ... schema master FSMO role and then disable replication to and from that site ... by increasing the replication interval to a very high number. ... > do an authoratative restore of AD to get the schema back ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)
  • Re: 2k8 AD from 2k AD
    ... the DCs that received the new schema changes and for which you want to return to the old state would need to go through a non-authoritative restore ... We only have to 2K DCs in the network the other one is running ... Even if you get a problem during the upgrade, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)
  • Re: Best Practice to Recover Schema
    ... If it came down to it, you could restore to a point in time. ... entire forest, restoring a DC and rebuilding from there. ... It would take a lot to totally hose the schema and for you to notice though ... > Would a simple restore of the system state from backup do the trick? ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.active_directory)