Upgrading PDC from NT to Windows 2000

  • Thread starter Thread starter El Marko
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E

El Marko

The name of our NT domain has an ampersand in it. Will there be conflicts in
AD setup and if so how can I resolve them without changing everyone's logon
in the company?

Thx
mm
 
If you do this upgrade, it will upgrade in Mixed Mode (i.e. NT domain
controller emulation). AD will not be a factoruntil you switch the whole
setup into Native Mode.
 
Gerry,

Sorry, but I am not following your response. Active Directory is Active
Directory, whether in Mixed Mode or in Native Mode. The major difference
between the two is that in Mixed Mode you can have functioning WINNT 4.0
Backup Domain Controllers and in Native Mode you can not have functioning
WINNT 4.0 Backup Domain Controllers. Additionally, in Native Mode you can
have nested groups as well as Universal Security Groups and a couple of
other things.

El Marko,

I might post this to the DNS NewsGroup....However, I am pretty sure that you
should stick to the RFC 1123 Standard, which allows for the letters A
through Z ( both Upper- and Lower-case ), the numbers 0 through 9 and a
'dash'.

HTH,

Cary


Gerry Voras said:
If you do this upgrade, it will upgrade in Mixed Mode (i.e. NT domain
controller emulation). AD will not be a factoruntil you switch the whole
setup into Native Mode.

El Marko said:
The name of our NT domain has an ampersand in it. Will there be
Click to expand...
conflicts
Click to expand...
 
Should have included in my post - is the ampersand in the DNS or NetBIOS
name?

Cary

Cary Shultz said:
Gerry,

Sorry, but I am not following your response. Active Directory is Active
Directory, whether in Mixed Mode or in Native Mode. The major difference
between the two is that in Mixed Mode you can have functioning WINNT 4.0
Backup Domain Controllers and in Native Mode you can not have functioning
WINNT 4.0 Backup Domain Controllers. Additionally, in Native Mode you can
have nested groups as well as Universal Security Groups and a couple of
other things.

El Marko,

I might post this to the DNS NewsGroup....However, I am pretty sure that you
should stick to the RFC 1123 Standard, which allows for the letters A
through Z ( both Upper- and Lower-case ), the numbers 0 through 9 and a
'dash'.

HTH,

Cary
Click to expand...
 
Yea, you're right-- I used the wrong terminology. The user should upgrade
the PDC to 2K in DC emulator mode -- before doing anything with Active
Directory.

Actually, I guess the proper way to do it is to demote the NT box to BDC,
upgrade it to a 2K DC emulator, and then promote it back to PDC. Upgrade
the other boxes as BDC emulators, then upgrade the whole thing to active
directory.

Cary Shultz said:
Gerry,

Sorry, but I am not following your response. Active Directory is Active
Directory, whether in Mixed Mode or in Native Mode. The major difference
between the two is that in Mixed Mode you can have functioning WINNT 4.0
Backup Domain Controllers and in Native Mode you can not have functioning
WINNT 4.0 Backup Domain Controllers. Additionally, in Native Mode you can
have nested groups as well as Universal Security Groups and a couple of
other things.

El Marko,

I might post this to the DNS NewsGroup....However, I am pretty sure that you
should stick to the RFC 1123 Standard, which allows for the letters A
through Z ( both Upper- and Lower-case ), the numbers 0 through 9 and a
'dash'.

HTH,

Cary
Click to expand...
 
Gerry,

Not sure that you have read the same books that I have :-)

What is DC Emulator Mode? Never heard of that.

I think that there might be confusion in that in WIN2000 there are five FSMO
Roles ( two Forest-wide and three Domain-wide ), one of which is the PDC
Emulator ( one of the three Domain-wide FSMO roles ). This FSMO role is
very important - in both a Mixed Mode as well as a Native Mode AD Domain.
In a Mixed Mode AD environment this is the WIN2000 DC that acts as - or
emulates - the WINNT 4.0 PDC for the WINNT 4.0 BDCs. In a Native Mode ( as
well as in a Mixed Mode ) this DC is the Authoritative time source as well
"master keeper" of GPOs.

Typically when you are upgrading an existing WINNT 4.0 domain to WIN2000 AD
you would simply take the WINNT 4.0 PDC and upgrade it to WIN2000. This
must be done first. There is no other way around it. Doing otherwise would
typically result in a completely new and separate AD Forest. Furthermore,
you would typically take a WINNT 4.0 BDC and promote it to PDC ( and then do
the upgrade on that ), just in case you decide/need to go back to your WINNT
environment.

I am not sure what you mean by the last part of the last sentence ( ...,
then upgrade the whole thing to active directory. ).

Once you run the upgrade on the WINNT 4.0 PDC you have an Active Directory
environment. The only way to undo it is to run dcpromo on the Domain
Controller(s). This has the reverse effect. It demotes what was a Domain
Controller to a member server. So, if you have a WIN2000 member server and,
for maintenance reasons you need an additional ( alebeit temporary ) Domain
Controller, simply make sure that your TCP/IP configuration is pointing to
the correct internal DNS server and run dcpromo on it. This will begin the
process of promoting this member server to a Domain Controller. Then, say,
after the week is over when it has served it purpose you can run dcpromo on
it again and this will demote it down to member server status again.

HTH,

Cary
 
Gerry,

It doesn't work like that! Like Cary says, Windows 2000 DC implies AD.
PDC Emulator is a role in a Win2K Active Directory Domain. You cannot
have a Win2K box acting as PDC Emulator in a NT4 Domain or any other
sort of Domain Controller for that matter. There is no such thing as
BDC Emulator.

Cary said it longer and probably better in his reply.

Cheers,

Cliff

(MVP)
 
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