Promoting a domain from 2003 to 2008

[garethEds]

Has anyone in a large organisation gone about the process of promoting a 2003 domain to a 2008 domain?

 

I know our LEA are considering it but there are a lot of things to take into account. One of them being how Windows 2000 clients will react.

 

If anyone has done this sort of migration with old (Windows 2000) clients how did they get through the issues - especially if replacing machines and OS wasn't an option?

 

What about Windows XP? - Did that migrate well or would it be better with Windows Vista/7? I know a lot of schools will stay on XP for a while around here.

 

I'm not part of the LEA process - I am leeching info (LOL) and taking an interest, but I thought I would just ask on here.

 

Any notes, advice welcome

 

GJE

[jsnetman]

Done it here with xp clients, no issues at all really.

[Kogelkopper]

We've just done a Windows 2003 Domain upgrade to Windows 2008 R2 and no problems with our 875 Windows XP SP3 machines!

[ZeroHour]

It should be fine but older O/S's will mean you need to enable legacy security for kerbros (I think its kerbros at least) but thats just a GP setting in default domain policy.

[bio]

I could be that you have a mismatch in LAN authentication level. You can check this in the local security policies on the member server or on the default domain controllers policy.

 

This is an exerpt from that policy

 

Network security: LAN Manager authentication level

This security setting determines which challenge/response authentication protocol is used for network logons. This choice affects the level of authentication protocol used by clients, the level of session security negotiated, and the level of authentication accepted by servers as follows:

Send LM & NTLM responses: Clients use LM and NTLM authentication and never use NTLMv2 session security; domain controllers accept LM, NTLM, and NTLMv2 authentication.

Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated: Clients use LM and NTLM authentication and use NTLMv2 session security if the server supports it; domain controllers accept LM, NTLM, and NTLMv2 authentication.

Send NTLM response only: Clients use NTLM authentication only and use NTLMv2 session security if the server supports it; domain controllers accept LM, NTLM, and NTLMv2 authentication.

Send NTLMv2 response only: Clients use NTLMv2 authentication only and use NTLMv2 session security if the server supports it; domain controllers accept LM, NTLM, and NTLMv2 authentication.

Send NTLMv2 response only\refuse LM: Clients use NTLMv2 authentication only and use NTLMv2 session security if the server supports it; domain controllers refuse LM (accept only NTLM and NTLMv2 authentication).

Send NTLMv2 response only\refuse LM & NTLM: Clients use NTLMv2 authentication only and use NTLMv2 session security if the server supports it; domain controllers refuse LM and NTLM (accept only NTLMv2 authentication).

 

Important

This setting can affect the ability of computers running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP Professional, and the Windows Server 2003 family to communicate with computers running Windows NT 4.0 and earlier over the network. For example, at the time of this writing, computers running Windows NT 4.0 SP4 and earlier did not support NTLMv2. Computers running Windows 95 and Windows 98 did not support NTLM.

 

Default:

Windows 2000 and windows XP: send LM & NTLM responses

Windows Server 2003: Send NTLM response only

Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2: Send NTLMv2 response only