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In-place upgrade?

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by r_p_mann

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I have an NT4 network. 1 PDC and 4 BDC's and a number of member servers. One of the BDC's is my Exchange 5.5 server. I'm ready to upgrade my PDC to W2K Adv Server and Active Directory. I then want to upgrade my Exchange 5.5 server to W2K Adv Server with Active Directory and then install Exchange 2000. I know I need to run in mixed mode since I'll have other NT4 boxes. I've been told that an in-place upgrade is the easiest way to go. I don't want to change any user, group, or share info.I want things to stay pretty much the same without disrupting my users. I would like to keep the same domain name, shares and permissions, and the same email domain names. Is an in-place upgrade the way to go?

How should I proceed? Tell me if this is the proper order or not -

1. Upgrade PDC to W2K and start Active Directory
2. Upgrade Exchange 5.5 Server to W2K and Active Directory.
3. Upgrade Exchange server to Exchange 2000

thanks a bunch!

5 replies

by timwalsh

An in--place upgrade is exactly the way to go if you want to keep your current domain structure. You also have the order you need to use. I would also add a step in front of step 1 (if possible).
To give you a fall-back position in case things goto crap while you are upgrading the PDC (of course that couldn't happen with a Microsoft product), before doing anything, force synchronize the domain and take one of your BDCs completely off-line. This way, if the installation does go bad, you have a good BDC that can quickly be put back on-line and promoted to PDC (and quickly get you operating again while you figure out what went wrong.

One aside: Exchange 2K does not need to be installed on a server running AD. AD just needs to be available on the network. In your step 2 you could just make the computer a Win 2K member server. Installing AD will make the server an additional domain controller (which may already be your plan), which could impact your Exchange operation if Exchange is heavily used.

by silentmisery

Just a side note to Tim's answer, if you're upgrading to Exchange 2000 please ensure you have Schema Administration access as Exchange 2000 utilitizes the AD and requires an alteration to the forest schema. You'll run into a world of difficulty if you don't.

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