« Exchanging Messages | Home | Network Support Network Support »
Upgrading SBS 2000 to SBS 2003 and Exchange 2000 to 2003
By admin | April 6, 2006
I recently did a job to
upgrade Windows Small Business Server 2000 to Windows Small Business Server
2003. This server was running on a network of around 30 PCs (XP and 98), 30
users, with numerous different types of printers. The server ran Pervasive and
SQL databases and Exchange 2000.
We did a huge amount of
research for this upgrade. Microsoft Pre-sales Technical Support offered two
routes for doing the upgrade:
“If you have an
existing server in your network, you can upgrade it to Windows Small Business
Server 2003. There are two options for completing an
upgrade:
|
• |
Upgrade the |
|
• |
Install Windows |
“
We
decided to do the inplace upgrade, as the customer had an existing installation
and was not likely to buy a new server box. We tested the upgrade in a test
lab, mirroring the same environment as near as possible. The test upgrade went
through without any problems. In fact, the documentation we found regarding
this upgrade all pointed to be a straight forward upgrade, with no significant
problems. Exchange included.
However, this
was not a straight forward upgrade. When dealing with SBS, you have to be
careful not to annoy it, because it starts stamping its foot and wanting to be
in-charge. The main draw back with SBS is that the SBS server needs to be the
root Domain Controller in the forest. You can’t have more than one SBS server
in a forest at any one time. Disobey these rules at your
peril.
Needless
to say, the upgrade didn’t go as planned. Half an hour before the end of the
upgrade, we got major registry errors and the installation could not
continue.
Having
been through this, I would now only offer ONE route for an SBS upgrade. The SBS
should be decommissioned from the existing domain, be clean installed and then
promoted back into the domain. Again this sounds easy, but do not forget that
SBS is a control freak and wants to be in-charge of the whole forest. So asking
it to take a back seat needs slow and carefull attention. Plus if you throw
exchange into the mix, this makes for quite a complex operation. Do not
experiment on a live system. The slightest error and you loose the whole
domain. In fact, when we did this, we ran a test lab alongside the live system
so we could completley test all steps beofre working on the live sysem.
Microsoft
don’t really have documentaion covering this complete process. We kida figured
this out for ourselvs and worked backwards on a couple of the
tutorials.
The
basic process to remove an SBS server from a domain while keepng all Exchange
and domain settings is:
1.
Join a Windows Server 2003 Stardard to the domain as a member
server.
2.
Install DNS on the new server
3.
DC promo the 2003 Standard server.
4.
Make the 2003 Standard Server a Global Catalog server. Reboot and wait for
event 1119 or 1869 showing the new DC is now a GC - This very important.
Remember no Global Catalog means no one can log on!
5.
Change the IP address of the new DC to point to itself. Change the IP address
of the SBS to point to the new DC.
6.
Transfer the FSMO roles to the new DC
7.
Wait for replication to happen. Give it a good 15 minutes, depending upon the
size of your network.
8.
Install Exchange onto the new DC. Accept defaults.
9.
Transfer mailboxes and public folders from SBS to the new DC Follow KB822931 to
remove the SBS exchange server from your organisation.
10.
Uninstall exchange from SBS. Dcpromo SBS out of the
domain.
After
all these seps, you are now ready to clean install SBS 2003 and then do the
reverse to get it back in the domain.
Follow
KB884453 to install
the new SBS 2003 back into the domain. This gives you all the steps required to
join your new SBS server into the existing domain, including the exchange
steps. Good luck.
Stay
alert till the last moment. Don’t start smoking cigars until everything has
been transferred over and the 2003 Standard Server has had exchange uninstallaed
and it has been dcpromo out of the domain.
——————————————————————————————————
Essential
documents to do the upgrade
KB822931 How to remove the
first Exchange Server 2003 computer from the administrative
group
KB884453 How to install
Small Business Server 2003 in an existing Active Directory
domain
Resources
for doing an inplace upgrade (not recommended without a safety
net)
From
Small Business Server 2000 to Small Business Server 2003
For information
about completing an upgrade, see Chapter
3B of the Getting Started guide.
For step-by-step
instructions to complete a server migration, see Migrating from Small
Business Server 2000 or Windows 2000 Server to Windows Small Business Server
2003.
Note To complete an
upgrade, you must be running Small Business Server 2000 Service Pack 1. If you
are not running Service Pack 1, see Knowledge Base article 326924 on the Microsoft Support site for information
about downloading the service pack.
Windows
Small Business Server 2003 Upgrade Best Practices
Topics: Exchange, Tech Watch |