Ok, where to start...at the beginning I guess! I have a small forest of Windows 2003 Standard servers, namely Crete and Tanzania (all my servers are named on countries). I've recently purchased a new Dell Poweredge 6850 server (named Tasmania), came preinstalled with Windows 2003 Standard R2. Upon running DCPROMO on this machine to install Active Directory and connect it to the forest/domain I get this error: "The operation failed because: The Active Directory Installation Wizard cannot continue because the forest is not prepared for installing Windows Server 2003. Use the Adprep command-line tool to prepare both the forest and the domain. For more information about using the Adprep, see AD Help. "The version of the Active Directory schema of the source forest is not compatible with the version of AD on this computer." So, I've tried running ADPREP (from CD2) on Tasmania, it fails reporting the machine isn't running Active Directory - not least surprising because DCPROMO failed! Putting CDROM 2 from R2 into Crete (Schema master), running ADPREP /forestprep also fails reporting that "ADPREP is valid, but is for a machine type other than the current machine" Chicken and egg situ here I think. I cannot get AD on Tasmania because the exist forest hasn't been prep'd, yet running ADPREP on the schema master (Crete) fails because the R2 version of ADPREP won't run. Surely there's an easier way of adding a newer R2 box to an existing Active Directory? Anyone have a few more clues?

Ha! I knew it, googling for another hour would glean the answers!! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919... Seems in my 2003 forest, I cannot add a 64bit 2003 server until the 2003's have had the extra R2 goodies. However, getting the "hotfix" from MS is like pulling teeth! A simple download link on the page above would've sorted my problems out ages ago. Now I'm on the phone to Dell to get exactly the same file - which surprisingly, isn't on their support site either! Beggars belief!