Hi
We currently have two DC's one 2003 and the other 2008, we are now wanting to introduce a 2012 R2 DC to the domain.
I have read the following
Which all looks a bit too easy so I just wanted to clarify/ask a few things before I went ahead and tried this.
Firstly I am happy to demote the 2003 domain controller however it currently operates Exchange 2003 which we still require and don't want to move from whilst introducing 2012 R2 initially, I want to do this at a later date.
Will demoting it have a negative effect on Exchange? Will it just become a member server in the domain and still function just not as a DC?
When doing a DCDiag from the 2008 DC I get one error relating to NCSecDesc which basically means I haven't run "adprep /rodcprep" can I safely ignore this error? The 2003 box doesn't report this error but from reading up on it it on relates to 2008 anyway.
I am not using and don't plan on using a read only domain controller.
I was then going to do the following to introduce the new DC
1.) Domain is already at 2003 functional level
2.) All 5 FSMO roles are currently held by the 2008 DC
3.) run "adprep /forestprep" from server 2012 disk on the 2008 DC or does this need to be run from 2003?
4.) Configure 2012 R2 as a DC - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh472162 - Should the Server 2012 R2 already be a member of the domain at this point?
5.) Transfer FSMO roles from 2008 to 2012 R2 DC
6.) Demote 2003 DC
7.) Raise domain functionality level to 2008.
Any help/advice appreciated.
Cheers