Server 2033 AD migration to Server 2012 R2

[Harry_Greatorex]

Good Afternoon everyone,

 

At a school I work at, there is a server 2003 DC running AD, DNS, DHCP, File Server, and Print Server, and we are planning to upgrade the network to windows 7 in the future, so we are building a new server. To make things simpler, we are just going to build a 2012/2012 R2 DC and make it primary DC. I have read an article (Step-By-Step: Adding a Windows Server 2012 Domain Controller to an Existing Windows Server 2003 network - Canadian IT Professionals - Site Home - TechNet Blogs) on how to migrate a 2003 network to 2012, but I would like to know if 2012 R2 has the capability to become a DC from a 2003 network and whether it will support some XP xlients. Ideally I would want to go R2 but server 2012 is fine. Are there any tips that I will have to take into account? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Best Regards

 

Harry Greatorex

[Michael]

Personally Harry I would migrate to 2008 R2 and not 2012 or 2012 R2, seeing as you only wish to deploy Windows 7 and some Windows XP clients.

 

2008 R2 + SP1 has been around for years and is tried and tested. It's a big enough task migrating from 2003 to 2008 R2, but it's something I've done numerous times.

[fiza]

Have a look at this video

[3s-gtech]

2033?! Gives new meaning to the 'Metro' interface! Really, it's straightforward. Update the AD schema from 2003 to 2012 (this is usually done from the 2012 install media onto the old server, and means that the domain has the required components for the new DCs installed) and do an adprep/forestprep from the installer.

 

Running Adprep.exe

 

Then add the new 2012 DC using dcpromo (on 2012 this is by adding the role, it's more GUI lead) than in 2003.

[zag]

I would also migrate to 2008 R2, its very easy that way and there is much more info online if things go wrong

[Harry_Greatorex]

Thanks for the replies guys. The upgrade to 2012/2012 R2 is more of a personal thing as i like 2012. There really isn't much difference in the migration that i have seen, my main gripe is that as its such a new OS, i was worried if people had already done this step of a migration (2003 to 2012). My issue is as the Windows 7 roll out will be gradual, at any one time, there will be a mixture of XP and 7 clients. As long as Server 2012 still supports XP in GPO then i will be ok. I will give it all a thought and post any updates on here. Thanks again for the replies!

 

Regards

Harry Greatorex

[Michael]

As you say, the process is very much the same. If you're absolutely sure you want to upgrade, then I would recommend 2012 R2 out of the two.

 

You only really need to worry about 2012 or 2012 R2 if you have Windows 8/8.1 clients, as it's easier and all the tools you require are ready to go. There's nothing really significant (I can think of), which is better in 2012 R2 than 2008 R2 for most admins.

[CraigM]

As you say, the process is very much the same. If you're absolutely sure you want to upgrade, then I would recommend 2012 R2 out of the two.

 

You only really need to worry about 2012 or 2012 R2 if you have Windows 8/8.1 clients, as it's easier and all the tools you require are ready to go. There's nothing really significant (I can think of), which is better in 2012 R2 than 2008 R2 for most admins.

 

• Much better Hyper-V
  
• DNS server that does reverse lookup zones properly again
  
• DHCP failover between 2 servers built in
  
• Data deduplication out of the box
  
• Server Manager that actually is a nice tool to use
  
• Built in network teaming supporting different vendors
  

 

The benefit of 2008 R2 though is that it is stable and over its 5 year life has had a lot of the kinks worked out, unlike 2012 which is still a little wet behind the ears.