BIG problem with old NT4 PDC and current migration

hi everyone. my company is in the process of migrating ad/exchange 2000 to
ad/exchange 2003. we purchased another company with a small office in
canada. they have a single NT4 domain with a single NT4 PDC (no BDC's). they
use the server strictly as a file/print server, and no users log on with
accounts in that domain. instead they log on to my domain via a trust that
exists between the 2 domains. problem: i have to get rid of the trust before
migration. my plan was to demote the NT4 PDC to a member server and simply
join it to my domain, then remove the trust. of course since its the only
PDC in the NT4 domain, i cant! so what do i do? someone suggested that there
is a 3rd party utility that pretends to be able to make this PDC a simple
member server? that scares me a little. and what about (if the hardware
allows) upgrading it to 2000 server, then putting it in a workgroup? is this
possible? im sure microsoft has considered this scenario.... anyone have a
suggestion?

On 9/2/2005 05:08, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> [...] they use the server strictly as a file/print server, and no users
> log on with accounts in that domain. instead they log on to my domain via
> a trust that exists between the 2 domains.

Why not just copy data off and be off with the NT box?

> [...] my plan was to demote the NT4 PDC to a member server and simply
> join it to my domain, then remove the trust. of course since its the only
> PDC in the NT4 domain, i cant! so what do i do? someone suggested that there
> is a 3rd party utility that pretends to be able to make this PDC a simple
> member server? that scares me a little.

Being the only PDC has nothing to do with not being able to demote. It's
just a simple fact that you can not natively demote an NT4 DC using
standard means. You must reinstall the OS to get a member server. The
unconventional way, using the third party utility UPromote, doesn't
"pretend" to demote; it actually does. Read their docs to see how.

Why don't you remove the trust, do what you must to get a member server in
the domain and then put your data back on? It sounds like the NT4 domain
isn't used for anything, so why not just drop it? If it is used in some
other capacity, maybe you'd be better off re-architecting as another
domain in your AD forest and then dropping the NT4 Domain.

The easiest solution is no doubt a new piece of hardware running as a 2003
member server and just copy the data over. You could also get a NAS box
as a temp server while you get the NT4 box's act together.

> and what about (if the hardware allows) upgrading it to 2000 server, then
> putting it in a workgroup? is this possible?

Sure, the upgrade method is great and recommended by MS, but I'd certainly
do it with server 2003 vice 2000. Just put a lot of ram in the box
(512MB+) and make sure it's Pentium or better. I'm not sure why you'd
want to put it in a workgroup rather than joining the domain.

> im sure microsoft has considered this scenario....

No, actually they didn't, along with many other common scenarios. Finally
they did consider most in 2003.

Have fun,

~Jason

--

everything you suggest requires an additional server to house the data.
thats not an option at the moment. and copying the data across the wan to my
corporate nas also isnt an option, not only because of the bandwidth
problems, but again, this has to be seamless to the users. if they have to
look somewhere else for their data, or remap drives to point to a new
location, thats unacceptable. so i will look at UPromote and see how it
"pretends" to do the trick.



"Jason Gurtz" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On 9/2/2005 05:08, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> [...] they use the server strictly as a file/print server, and no users
>> log on with accounts in that domain. instead they log on to my domain via
>> a trust that exists between the 2 domains.
>
> Why not just copy data off and be off with the NT box?
>
>> [...] my plan was to demote the NT4 PDC to a member server and simply
>> join it to my domain, then remove the trust. of course since its the only
>> PDC in the NT4 domain, i cant! so what do i do? someone suggested that
>> there
>> is a 3rd party utility that pretends to be able to make this PDC a simple
>> member server? that scares me a little.
>
> Being the only PDC has nothing to do with not being able to demote. It's
> just a simple fact that you can not natively demote an NT4 DC using
> standard means. You must reinstall the OS to get a member server. The
> unconventional way, using the third party utility UPromote, doesn't
> "pretend" to demote; it actually does. Read their docs to see how.
>
> Why don't you remove the trust, do what you must to get a member server in
> the domain and then put your data back on? It sounds like the NT4 domain
> isn't used for anything, so why not just drop it? If it is used in some
> other capacity, maybe you'd be better off re-architecting as another
> domain in your AD forest and then dropping the NT4 Domain.
>
> The easiest solution is no doubt a new piece of hardware running as a 2003
> member server and just copy the data over. You could also get a NAS box
> as a temp server while you get the NT4 box's act together.
>
>> and what about (if the hardware allows) upgrading it to 2000 server, then
>> putting it in a workgroup? is this possible?
>
> Sure, the upgrade method is great and recommended by MS, but I'd certainly
> do it with server 2003 vice 2000. Just put a lot of ram in the box
> (512MB+) and make sure it's Pentium or better. I'm not sure why you'd
> want to put it in a workgroup rather than joining the domain.
>
>> im sure microsoft has considered this scenario....
>
> No, actually they didn't, along with many other common scenarios. Finally
> they did consider most in 2003.
>
> Have fun,
>
> ~Jason
>
> --

[please trim posts]

On 9/3/2005 11:01, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> location, thats unacceptable. so i will look at UPromote and see how it
> "pretends" to do the trick.

It doesn't pretend, it provides functionality that Microsoft left out (and
now available in newer products out of the box).

~Jason

--

exactly what do you mean by "please trim posts"?
but more importantly, you MUST have something better to do with your life
than to worry about someones post on some news server... dont you?



"Jason Gurtz" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%239KA$(E-Mail Removed)...
> [please trim posts]
>
> On 9/3/2005 11:01, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> location, thats unacceptable. so i will look at UPromote and see how it
>> "pretends" to do the trick.
>
> It doesn't pretend, it provides functionality that Microsoft left out (and
> now available in newer products out of the box).
>
> ~Jason
>
> --