Share via


Supported upgrades for domain controllers to Windows 2008 (Melting Pot in CorpNet)

Currently we are running Win2k3 SP1, R2, SP2, Win2k8 Beta3, RC0, RC1, and RTM Escrow idomain controllers in production...  Since we're running some downlevel servers in the environment and I was interested in what is supported to be upgraded to Windows 2008 when we sign off and the the DVDs start getting pressed.  Luckily a mail came by on one of our discussion aliases that has the details I (we) desire.

  • You can have DCs with down-level OS down to Windows 2000 SP4 in the same forest along with WS2008 DCs.
  • This means you can have forests with a mix of WS2008, WS2003 SP2, WS2003 R2, WS2003 SP1 and Win2K SP4 (please have in mind that this depends on the forest and domain functional levels).
  • If you have a down-level only forest (i.e. no WS2008) and want to introduce a new WS2008 you will need to run ADPrep (ForestPrep and DomainPrep).
  • You can run ADPrep having down-level OS down to Win2K SP4, you don’t need to have all of them with WS03 SP2.
  • However if you are going to in-place upgrade any of the down-level DCs, these have to be at least WS2003 SP1.

Refs:

Upgrading Active Directory Domains to Windows Server 2008 AD DS Domains

What Service Packs can be upgraded to Windows 2008

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    PingBack from http://www.ditii.com/2008/01/24/windows-2008-supported-upgrades-for-domain-controllers/

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Bron: webwereld.nl IBM zet de aanval in op Microsoft via het MKB. Het MKB is typisch een marktsegment

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Should be more smooth.  The gap between beta3 and RC0 was long (8 monhts or more?) and there were a ton of fixes put in between those times.  

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    How about upgrading from Server 2008 RC0 to RTM in a single domain controller environment?  I've been testing Server 2008 in a limited test network with 4 PC's and a single Domain Controller as the only server.  I had some issues upgrading from the beta to RC0, and ended up having to re-crete the test domain.  I'm hoping the upgrade from RC0 to final will be a bit smoother.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    It was actually domain mode issue. Domain was in mixed mode event though during domain creation i selected native option. i was not able to find how to change domain functional level in windows 2000. It is not alike windows 2003. I right click on domain name, general tab and click on change mode and it worked. after that i ran the domainprep /gpprep command and it worked fine. Thanks for your support.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    I dont know if RC0 --> RTM is offically supported though.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Good to hear Manoj.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Manoj, you might want to check out: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/9c91be5f-df14-40b2-b176-2b1852a51e611033.mspx?mfr=true

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2008
    i m trying to upgrade from 2000 based domain to 2008 domain. 2000 domain is in native mode. when i run adprep /domainprep /gpprep, installatio failed with error: adprep detected that domain is not in native mode. when i try to run dcpromo on 2008 to make it ADC, setup also fails there with the error: plz run adprep /domainprep. don't know what's the problem. Thanks in advance. Manoj