Guest CryptiniteDemon Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Okay, yet another question from me. Say I have an NT PDC and an NT BDC. I upgrade the PDC to 2003, and the BDC still serves as a Domain Controller in the domain. Now, hypothetically, say something goes horribly wrong after a few weeks and we decide we can no longer be on 2003. Also, most of the network computers have logged into the upgraded domain since then, adopting the new DNS structure. Can I remove the 2003 box, then promote the NT BDC to a PDC and have the network act as if I had never done the upgrade? Or will I have to write a script to get all the computers to rename themselves to the old domain name?
Guest Danny Sanders Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Re: Question about 2003 / Nt interopability > Now, hypothetically, say something goes horribly wrong after a few weeks > and > we decide we can no longer be on 2003. What *usually* goes horribly wrong when moving from NT 4.0 to AD is DNS. The administrator usually treats an AD domain the same as a NT 4.0 domain. Get DNS right and AD works as expected. > Can I remove the 2003 box, then promote the NT BDC to a PDC and have the > network act as if I had never done the upgrade? Yes you can. But most of the problems that would cause you to revert back are usually DNS related. Get DNS right and you will have no problem. See: Setting Up the Domain Name System for Active Directory http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;237675 Best Practices for DNS Client settings in Windows 2000 server and in Windows Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;825036 How to configure DNS for Internet access in Windows Server 2003 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323380 hth DDS "CryptiniteDemon" <CryptiniteDemon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:327199B2-1CE6-4950-86C1-7599267897EC@microsoft.com... > Okay, yet another question from me. > > Say I have an NT PDC and an NT BDC. I upgrade the PDC to 2003, and the > BDC > still serves as a Domain Controller in the domain. > > Now, hypothetically, say something goes horribly wrong after a few weeks > and > we decide we can no longer be on 2003. Also, most of the network > computers > have logged into the upgraded domain since then, adopting the new DNS > structure. > > Can I remove the 2003 box, then promote the NT BDC to a PDC and have the > network act as if I had never done the upgrade? Or will I have to write a > script to get all the computers to rename themselves to the old domain > name?
Guest CryptiniteDemon Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Re: Question about 2003 / Nt interopability Thanks. I have no problems with DNS. It's just one of the many possibilities that I am required to take into consideration by my boss. Any screw-ups could cost us quite a bit of money, so I have to do exhaustive tests of every scenario I can think of.
Guest Danny Sanders Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Re: Question about 2003 / Nt interopability > Thanks. I have no problems with DNS. Just be aware that it is set up totally different from DNS in NT 4.0 and AD totally relies on DNS being setup properly. AD troubleshooting begins with DNS. hth DDS "CryptiniteDemon" <CryptiniteDemon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:41E25DA1-E939-42D7-A93D-93AD6D15B5B7@microsoft.com... > Thanks. I have no problems with DNS. It's just one of the many > possibilities that I am required to take into consideration by my boss. > Any > screw-ups could cost us quite a bit of money, so I have to do exhaustive > tests of every scenario I can think of. >
Guest leew [MVP] Posted April 24, 2008 Posted April 24, 2008 Re: Question about 2003 / Nt interopability CryptiniteDemon wrote: > Thanks. I have no problems with DNS. It's just one of the many > possibilities that I am required to take into consideration by my boss. Any > screw-ups could cost us quite a bit of money, so I have to do exhaustive > tests of every scenario I can think of. > If that's the case, then I would strongly advise you to setup a test environment (Virtual PC works great for this) and see what happens in a true test. I agree though, misconfigured/misunderstood DNS is the most frequent cause of problems. And frankly, before ever upgrading a network, you really should be doing tests in specifically setup test environments.
Guest CryptiniteDemon Posted April 25, 2008 Posted April 25, 2008 Re: Question about 2003 / Nt interopability I've already set up a good-sized test network for all of it along with about 15 virtual machines. However, I could not get this to work properly when going back to the BDC. Basically, I upgraded the PDC to 2003 and the network worked just fine. The BDC was left as an NT 4.0 controller. I then logged in on several of the PCs after the upgrade to make sure the 2003 DC worked. All was good. Now, after that I took the 2003 box offline, then promoted the NT BDC to primary. However, the workstations that I had logged on to would no longer authenticate with the NT box. So how do I set things up to where the computers would work with this scenario as per the first post in the thread?
Guest Danny Sanders Posted April 25, 2008 Posted April 25, 2008 Re: Question about 2003 / Nt interopability Do you have WINS setup? hth DDS "CryptiniteDemon" <CryptiniteDemon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:6F78AC82-B63A-44A6-8A8E-63AC7969875D@microsoft.com... > I've already set up a good-sized test network for all of it along with > about > 15 virtual machines. > > However, I could not get this to work properly when going back to the BDC. > > Basically, I upgraded the PDC to 2003 and the network worked just fine. > The > BDC was left as an NT 4.0 controller. > > I then logged in on several of the PCs after the upgrade to make sure the > 2003 DC worked. All was good. > > Now, after that I took the 2003 box offline, then promoted the NT BDC to > primary. However, the workstations that I had logged on to would no > longer > authenticate with the NT box. > > So how do I set things up to where the computers would work with this > scenario as per the first post in the thread?
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