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I have a Windows 2000 native domain and Windows 2000 Forest & Domain controllers. I also have Windows 2003 servers that are not DC, just members of the domain like any other computer.

I am purchasing Windows 2008 Server R2. I want my forest and domain to be the latest AD.

Originally, the domain was NT 4.0 and we upgraded to 2000 way back when. It was never quite "right" in that some old references were kept to an even older domain and things like Policies don't always do right, I have a lot of GPO errors on the computers about not being able to import GPOs...etc.

Do you think I should try and upgrade my forest and domain by upgrading the 2003 servers to DC and then upgrading the forest and domain to 2008?

Or do you think I should create a fresh new domain with new servers and try and transfer users, mailboxes (there will be a 2008 exchange server as well), and other AD settings to the new domain?

1000 users.

Thanks.

2 Answers 2

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My 2000 domain was a mess too when moving to 2003 and no matter what I tried, I was never able to get a good clean transition. After fiddling with it for a few months, I opted to start over clean. I had about 100 or so users, so I exported out the user accounts to txt file and wrote a script to recreate all the user accounts in the new domain along with creating new mailboxes in exchange, creating a user folder and setting permissions to said folder. Years and years....and years later, there are still some accounts in my domain that say "Autocreated - 8/15/2003".

Looking back on the migration I was glad I started over and endured the user backlash. When we upgraded to 2008 a few years ago, everything went smoothly and the domain is still very healthy.

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That's completely up to your discretion. Do you have time to export and import all the users, recreate all the GPO objects etc? If you do, I'd say go for it.

If you don't, I would say go with the migration and figure out how to fix your GPO issues and remove all old references to old domain controllers.

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