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NT PDC Removal

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by duvan

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Scenario: NT4.0 PDC and two stand alone servers, what is the best way to remove the PDC and to move the folders with rights to another standalone server?
If i have to make one of those stand alone servers, am i able to make it a bdc without starting from the scratch?

5 replies

by some guy in seattle

Unfortunately, no. (This is Microsoft's big advertisement for putting in Windows 2000. All machines can be standalone or domain controllers with no rebuilds!) In the NT 4 environment, you can have either a domain controller or member server and this is set during installation. (I've heard of various hacking methods where a domain controller can be made into a member server and vice-versa, but this is not supported by Microsoft and may irrepairably damage any data on the machine.)

The best way to do this is build a machine to be a BDC, add it to your domain, promote it to PDC, then remove the other machine (after transferring any files off).

Hope that helps -

by mr_fixit

I just went through the same thing. The best, safest, and easiest way to do this is to install a new server (PDC to another domain, or BDC to the existing one.) Then just copy the files and structures over. NT is very touchy when you start shuffeling around Computer Names.

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