Adding a 2003 member server to an AD2000 domain

  • Thread starter Thread starter Craig Taylor
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Craig Taylor

Hi
I want to add a new 2003 member server to our existing 2000 AD domain. Is
this possible and if so is there anything I have to take into consideration?

Thanks
Craig
 
Craig,

Yes it is very possible and just like adding any other WINNT 4.0 + system to
the network.

You concern would be well founded when you decide that you want/need for
this WIN2003 Member Server to become a Domain Controller. Then you need to
extend the Schema. It is very similar to what you need to do before you can
install Exchange 2000. You would have to simply drop in the WIN2003 Server
CD and run adprep /forestprep and then adprep /domainprep ( for each
Domain ). I would run adprep /forestprep on the WIN2000 DC that holds the
FSMO role of Schema master and I would run adprep /domainprep on the WIN2000
DC that holds the FSMO role of PDC Emulator. But that sounds like it would
be for another day!

If this will one day be necessary ( if you foresee this, that is ) then I
might just go ahead and extend the Schema now. There is - with one possible
exception ( and there is a well documented fix for that ) - very little
downside to this.

BTW - the one possible exception is if you are running Exchange 2000 there
are three mangled attributes. Please see the following MSKB Article for the
solution:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314649

HTH,

Cary
 
Thanks for that Cary, at the moment it just needs to join as a member to the
existing 2000 domain. Once I have familiarised myself with 2003 I intend
upgrading the existing PDCs - but that is definitely another day!

Craig
 
Craig,

You are welcome. It might be very prudent to wait until you are very
familiar with WIN2003 Active Directory. I have just started playing with it
and must admit that I love what I see so far.

If you do not mind, I might throw a bone your way. If you are not already
able to script ( like me, but I am learning WMI right now and will then
tackle ADSI - okay, I know that VBScripting is really the scripting..... ) I
might suggest that you take a hard look at ADModify. It is a really great
tool that allows you to make the same change to a ton of user account
objects. Say, for example, that the CEO wants that in every user account
object the Company Name is present. Well, if you have 100 user account
objects it could take a bit of time. Forget it is you have 1000 user
account objects. With ADModify you can do this in a bout 15 seconds!

Okay, here is another bone. Go to Joe Richard's website and check out
oldcmp.exe. It is a wonderful little utility that can do a whole lot of
things. Mainly you manage computer account objects ( er, 'manage' might not
be the correct term ). Have a lot of computer account objects that you are
pretty sure are no longer being used? Probably not a problem. But what
about those where you are unsure? Disable them? Delete them? Possibly a
problem.... With this utility you know with extreme confidence which
computer account objects are old / unused and no longer need to be there.

The link for ADModify is here:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/PSS/Tools/Exchange%20Support%20Tools/ADModify/
Joe's web site is here: http://www.joeware.net

HTH,

Cary
 
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