Bit of fun - who has the oldest (working) Windows domain?

[3s-gtech]

I put this in general as it's not a technical thread, just be interesting to know how old your current functioning domains are. I know many on here have rebuilt from scratch over the years, or migrated from CC3/4, but how old is it, and what versions of Windows Server have served it?

 

Ours is fairly ancient, older than most pupils anyway!

 

 

I wasn't here, but I believe it was built on Server 2000 (which was ace from memory) and has had every server OS since as DCs, not including 2016 as I'm not brave enough yet. Still working very well, but it has been extensively cleaned up, ADSIEdit'd, updated, and is at 2012 R2 FL. How stable/clutter free is yours?

 

On the flip side, who has the newest (functioning, school wide) domain?

[GuyJD]

I have 2 domains here, admin and curriculum and they were born on the 29th and 30th October 2013 respectively, I don't remember starting fresh when we got rid of Ranger but we must have, I did only work for the company that supported the school at the time so I may not have been one of the guys that came to do the job.

[localzuk]

2004 for me here. So, yours is a little older!

[MrEprise]

@3s-gtech I believe mine beats yours by just a few days shy of 2 months.

 

[ADMaster]

Mine is 2004 as well. I did not set it up but I think it started on 2003, I've taken it through 2003-2012 r2.

[FN-GM]

Mine is only 4 & today is its birthday!

[3s-gtech]

I believe mine beats yours by just a few days shy of 2 months.

 

Impressive, how's it working for you?

[MrEprise]

Impressive, how's it working for you?

 

Surprisingly well, it started life on NT 4.0 (before my time as I was just starting College by then) and much like yours has progressed through every Windows Server version (bar 2016) and still works perfectly fine to this day. It did see a restore from backup when we were hit with the Conficker Virus circa 2010. It survived it but I thought it best to restore sysvol from a backup we had prior to that.

 

A former line manager did comment a few times that we should probably rebuild it from scratch after a number of occasions where some Group Policies wouldn't run under certain circumstances, but it did transpire that due to some of the cheap hardware we used to buy and my inexperience regarding certain features in Group Policy, it was never an issue with how aged or messy (at the time) our Domain happened to be.

[RLR]

2004 here!

[Koldov]

Beat us by about a year! Long before I started though...

 

 

But thanks for making me dig around - seems our Forest Function Level needs looking at!

 

[AJWhite1970]

July 2003 here, way before my time. Really should have been reformatted and started again when I joined in 2009 as it was in a bad way but the fixes I had to make on day 1 appear to have held for the past 8 years...

[sted]

looks like April 2004 is the oldest i can find (at least without looking everywhere rather than educated guesswork)

i stand corrected the office network is july 2003

[Oaktech]

September 2004 here (apparently at 1:10am)

[Blue_Cookeh]

05/08/2003 19:17:23

 

Back in the good ol' Server 2003 days and it's touched every Server version since!

[Koldov]

July 2003 here, way before my time. Really should have been reformatted and started again when I joined in 2009 as it was in a bad way but the fixes I had to make on day 1 appear to have held for the past 8 years...

 

Quite a steep learning curve for me at the time as I'd never worked with servers before (so reformatting and starting again would have been unthinkable), but working out what does what, clearing out junk and fixing the mess that was a years old AD/GPO taught me a thing or two!

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I bet @DSapseid has the newest one here?

[zebulunn]

March 2001

I couldn't tell you anything though, been here since 2013.

[caffrey]

27/04/2003 here. 5 years before I started so I'm not totally to blame for the mess!

[dry]

'06 here, which may seem practically brand new to a lot of you- but I was in my 2nd year of secondary school at that point!

[3s-gtech]

It does indeed - no AD Recycle Bin at a forest level currently!

[Blue_Cookeh]

I bet @DSapseid has the newest one here?

 

Triggered

[Koldov]

It does indeed - no AD Recycle Bin at a forest level currently!

 

Haven't needed one in the last 6 years!

 

What is it even for?!

[3s-gtech]

"Woops I just deleted the main Students OU"

 

Powershell -> sorted

[Dos_Box]

Some nice early dates comign up there. It does make me wonder if there are some very old redundant AD artifcats lurkign in those systems.

I wonder if directory archeology is a thing and how you would go about it?

The possibilites for long dead accounts to be lurking in there or references to ancient GPO's is something to get even the most curious of sysadmins digging I think.

[Koldov]

I would hopefully never do something as bad as that @3s-gtech!

 

Expect a post from me tomorrow asking how I can reinstate the main Students OU without a recycle bin.....

 

Just kidding, all up to 2012R2 now!