2008 Active Directory Migration to new hardware

[ChrisAFC]

Hi All,

I have recently been set the task to look into upgrading our existing enviornment to a Windows 2008 Domain.

We currently have 2 Windows 2000 Domain Controllers, on fairly old hardware. At the same time as migrating to Windows 2008 we will be looking to swap out the hardware, I have the new servers already built with Windows 2008 Server installed.

I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on how to go about this migration since not only are we looking to migrate from Windows 2000 to Windows 2008 (I appreciate that to upgrade we would need to first move to Windows 2003) but also at the same time we would like to move over to new hardware, and preferably keep the current Domain Controller names and IP Addresses.

If at all possible we would like to avoid the process of upgrading to Win2k3 and then Win 2008 as this process would be messy, instead going for a clean new install of Win 2008.

Excuse my ignorance in advance, unfortunately I am fairly new to Active Directory, but to keep the current computer names could I demote a Domain Controller, name the new Windows 2008 Server as the demoted machine name, and then run DCPromo against it. And then once complete do the same for the other Domain Controller? Obviously I would have to transfer FSMO roles accross, run metadata cleanups to remove DC references etc.

Hope this posting makes sense and appologies in advance if there have been any other threads similar to this already created which I havent spotted.

[Sam.D]

I guess that the problem that you are having of 2008 Active Directory Migration to new hardware has already been solved on our forums. Have a look at the following threads and they will help you how to go about the migration:

http://forums.techarena.in/server-migration/995806.htm
Process for Hardware Migration for Domain Controller

[ChrisAFC]

Many thanks for this Sam, sorry I did not see these articles prior to posting this.

The only other question I have is that we are currently using Exchange 2000 SP3 (on a separate dedicated server). I have been reading elsewhere that Exchange 2000 and Active Directory 2008 cannot coexist, can someone please clarify this for me?

Thanks