I support a small office with a single server that needs replacing. I am wondering the best method to use to replace a single production server running SBS 2003 Premium with a new single SBS 2003 R2 Std server without losing AD, Exchange and Data directories. I am looking at replacing the Windows 2003 Small Business Server Premium Edition system with a new server, all new hardware for upgraded power and capacity, and changing the OS from SBS Premium to SBS Standard R2. The Original Premium installation is corrupted and has been "repaired" with a repair install. I only want to make sure that Active Directory and Exchange and the data directories are moved properly to the new server with no data loss and minimal downtime. Exchange and AD have a lot of information in them (thousands of contacts, hundreds of email addresses, etc). Ultimately I want the new server to look pretty much exactly the same as the old one, just more reliable and powerful. The IP needs to be the same eventually and the server and domain name has to be the same as well. Is there a guide to doing this or can anyone give me a roadmap? As I understand SBS I would not be able to install this alongside it in the domain and replicate data between Domain Controllers...is that correct? If so what other ways are there to make sure this is successful? Thanks for any help, j5

I've done this with SBS to SBS. What I did was installed SBS on the new server hardware and created a parallel domain of the same name (not connected to the network). Then, I recreated all the user accounts and configured the permissions on the ACL's. Following that I installed all software and then did some testing to ensure I had ported the database software and data over correctly and it would work properly with the clients. Then, once I was sure everything was ok, I removed the clients from the original domain, downed the server and removed it from the network. Brought the new server up and added the clients to the new domain and tested to ensure everything worked properly. I had the client keep the old server on-site and ready to boot for a week or two to as a fallback in case of serious problems.

Is it critical the internal domain name stay the same? You have a few options: Treat this as an inter-forest migration with the new server as a new forest/domain, and use ADMT to move accounts, groups, and contacts. Use the Exchange Migration Wizard to move mailboxes. You could backup your current server, upgrade it to SBS2003 R2, backup the system state and Exchange IS, install SBS2003 R2 on the new hardware, then restore AD and the Exchange information store to the new hardware. Those would be your two main solutions to choose from aside from doing this more "by hand" like Curt_R is saying. His strategy could potentially be expedited using csvde or ldifde to get the user accounts populated. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

Anyone tried this: www.sbsmigration.com This is what Microsoft Partner support is recommending (although they dont support it...)

Never tried it, but I wouldn't imagine it being terribly difficult to make such a product work without much trouble. I'd probably even recommend it if you're not heavy into AD/Exchange as you need to make sure if you do this, you do clean up DNS properly, map the user accounts to mailboxes, etc. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"

Someone over at the technet forums turned me on to this article of adding a SBS to an existing SBS domain as part of a migration plan. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884... Funny how MS keeps changing the rules. Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

"You should not use this article to add an SBS 2003 computer to a network where there is an existing SBS 2000 or SBS 2003 domain controller for migration purposes." That's from that article. "Enough, enough bowing down to disillusion! Hats off & applause to rogues & evolution! The ripple effect is too good not to mention. If you’re not affected, you’re not paying attention!"