I found no group specific to Microsoft BackOffice 2000 Server, this group is
as close as I found. Hopefully some of you are also familiar with it.
I currently have MS BackOffice 2000 Server accross 3 servers, 2 of which are
acting as domain controllers for a windows 2000 native mode domain. Exchange
2000 is also on one of the DC's and SQL 2000 is on the other DC. ISA lives
by itself on the 3rd. I now have 3 brand new servers on which I have Windows
Server 2003 R2 Standard licenses for. I intend on upgrading the existing
2000 domain to a windows server 2003 domain (one forest, one site, one
domain).
Below is my current plan, which I'm in the middle of researching for issues.
I found reference to not being able to upgrade a SBS 2000 domain to a
standard windows 2003 domain which is the first thing that may wrinkle my
plan... Although I did just find out, thankfully, that SBS 2000 is not the
same as BackOffice 2000 Server, I was not sure of this thinking it may have
just been a name change. So maybe this issue will not apply to me, but,
since I'm assuming this issue takes place when adprep.exe tries to update
the schema and sees the SBS custom objects, thus failing it, that the same
may happen for BackOffice since it also has a modified schema, like SBS.
my plan:
1) fresh install of windows server 2003 R2 on a new server (not trying to
upgrade existing backoffice 2000 machines)
2) join new 2k3 machine to the existing backoffice 2000 domain, then promote
it as an additional domain controller in the existing domain.
3) transfer all FSMO roles to the new 2k3 domain controller
4) dcpromo down (demote) the existing 2 backoffice 2000 domain controllers
back to member servers.
that leaves me with only the 2k3 domain controller at which point I assumed
I could raise the forest and domain functional levels to windows server
2003.
will it work? Not considering any exchange 2000 issues yet, thats next. So
assuming for now that there are no exchange servers involved, does the plan
for upgrading the domain look like it should work? I will be looking into
exchange issues next, as I have already seen refernce to them as well, but
one thing at a time...