migrate or upgrade nt4.0 to win2k3?

[mrCide]

Okay.. I just started working at this company with about 70 users, they have an nt4 box basically for user access, file/print sharing, and exchange 5.5.

I have a new dell server that has wind2k3 standard on it, all the users added (not migrated), and it has exchange 2000 installed on it but no mailboxes setup.. i believe only 5-10 people have exchange mailboxes, the rest of the company uses a linux box for email (the place is an IT nightmare)..

anyhow, half the workstations are win98, actually 85/15 win98/winxp.

what's the most painless way to get the new server in place of the old one..? i was thinking what a pain in the ass it would be to go 'migrate' each workstation to the new domain.. i was thinking of ghosting the old one to the new one, and upgrading it to windows2k3 so it retains the name/setting and i dont have to do anything else.. but i dont know if that would be extremely painful (like 4 drives/partitions on the current machine)..

anyone got any advice? where do i start? they kind of fooled me with this <snip>.. any help is appreciated

 

[Nothinman]

I can't believe an upgrade would go well. If you do decide to stay with them you might want to take this oppurtunity to setup some proper infrastructure. Since you're using Windows setup an AD, upgrade all the Win98 boxes to XP, etc it'll be extra work but if you have to manage it for the long run it'll be worth it.

 

[Smilin]

Don't ghost. ouch. You're almost guaranteed to get a Stop 0x000007B at boot.

Active directory migration tool (ADMT). Search MS for it.

You may be past this point already but typically you would put NT on the new box (clean install, no images), bring it up as a BDC, promote it to PDC then upgrade the OS to 2003 (which will go quite smoothly with a clean NT box). That would upgrade the whole domain to 2003. Once that's done move the data over to the new box, recreate shares and change the login script to point everyone to the new data. Using this method you don't really need to touch the workstations since they never leave their original domain.

There's a bajillion other variables here and more than one way to skin the cat. If you only have 10-20 XP boxes that's not to much to just create new computer accounts and move em over. The 98 boxes don't care much about what NT domain they belong to - their workgroup/domain name will need to match for netbios purposes though. Once you go 2003 AD you'll need a client for em.

It sounds like you have some work ahead of you but it's nothing that couldn't be accomplished in one rough weekend. Whatever you decide to do, now is the time to ensure your backups including system state are in good condidtion. A weekend of hard work could turn into a weeklong nightmare if you drop the ball in the wrong place and dont have backups.

Don't give up on your company yet. They may have dumped a mess in your hands but I wouldn't mind it myself. At the end of it all you get things the way YOU want and you get to do it right. When it's all said and done you'll have a smoothly running domain and you can sit around with your feet up like the maytag repairman

FYI, you're not allowed to ask these questions while simultaneously using that signature :Q

Checkout that ADMT and Good luck