Upgrade Order

[Stuart Martin]

We have an NT PDC with 2 NT BDC's with Exchange 5.5 on one of the BDC's.
I want to ultimately upgrade both to Windows 2000 and then upgrade Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 but I wondered if anyone knows the best order to do this and will it all have to be done at the same time or can it be done over a period of time?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[John Slevin]

We did a little at a time. we have 2 domains one with 2700 users and one with 5000 users. we had 1 PDC 5 BDC's

1. Buy a new server and build it as a NT 4.0 latest service pack BDC.
2. Make sure domain is in sync and logs look good.
3. Promote new BDC to PDC and wait for domain to know who the commander is (PDC). Unplug old PDC that was demoted to BDC so if anything goes wrong you can kill the windows 2000 DC bring your old BDC back on line and promote to PDC and everything will be back to normal. Make sure you have DNS internal running correct. We put ours on a windows 2000 server first and made it a primary.
4. Put windows 2000 server cd in NT 4.0 new PDC it will upgrade to windows 2000 first DC and will hold the master roles. all existing BDC will talk to new 2000 DC because it holds the PDC emulator.
5. I would also buy a new server for Exchange 2000 this way you can migrate over while still running 5.5. I have heard to many bad things about an inplace upgrade. Don't be cheep when it come to this upgrade of your domain, it may cost you your job.
6. Then one at a time you can promote your BDC's to windows 2000 DC. I would not do it to the Exchange 5.5 box. Just leave it until you can pull the 5.5 server off line after migrating all of you public folders and mail boxes to the new server. You will also need to learn about ADC (Active Directory Connector) Domain Prep, Forest Prep. and many other things. I hope this gives you some idea what you are up against. Read Tech Net and search for DOC's that will explain how to do the above senerio. Good luck! johnny


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Stuart Martin at 9/24/2002 3:14:47 AM


We have an NT PDC with 2 NT BDC's with Exchange 5.5 on one of the BDC's.
I want to ultimately upgrade both to Windows 2000 and then upgrade Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000 but I wondered if anyone knows the best order to do this and will it all have to be done at the same time or can it be done over a period of time?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.