From Vista Workgroup to Windows 2003 Server

Hello,
Is there a guide somewhere that might walk me through easily moving from a
workgroup setting to 2003 server? Without losing any functionality?

=?Utf-8?B?QW15?= <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:262AF0E3-6E88-41F2-BEAB-(E-Mail Removed):

> Hello,
> Is there a guide somewhere that might walk me through easily moving
> from a
> workgroup setting to 2003 server? Without losing any functionality?
>

I don't know of a specific guide for this purpose, although another writer
and I are currently writing one for Windows Server 2008, which will be
released next year, so I can give you some general advice and can assist
after the holiday next week with more specific questions if you have them.

There is a lot of great information for Windows Server 2003 hereL

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...c/default.mspx

In general, you will want to use the instructions in the product Help to do
the following:

-- Install Active Directory and DNS. Configure a reverse lookup zone in
DNS.
-- Install Windows Internet Name Service (WINS). (You will find
documentation in different places that says you don't need WINS. In some
cases you don't, but it is very difficult to assess this issue, so it's
easier to just install it, especially since it needs no additional
configuration unless you have multiple WINS servers and want to configure
replication between them,)
-- Create user accounts in Active Directory Users and Computers
-- For anyone (including yourself) who you want to have Enterprise Admin or
Domain Admin privileges, add those users to those groups
-- If you plan on using DHCP, install it, create one or more scopes,
authorize the DHCP server in AD, and activate the scopes
-- Log onto workgroup computers with a local account that has
Administrative privileges, and then join the computer to the domain.
(During this process you will be required to provide credentials for a user
account that at minimum is a member of Domain Users in AD)

If you have a file or application server of some kind, before doing all of
this make sure that the applications will function properly in a WS03
domain environment, since ideally you would join these servers to the
domain as well. The software vendor should provide this information.

Most people get confused about the difference between user accounts on the
local computer and in AD. You might not be confused about this, but just in
case, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

-- After creating a user account in AD, a user can log onto any client
computer in the domain unless you create restrictions in the user account
properties.
-- If you want users to have Administrative privileges on their own
computers (so that they can install programs, etc) while logged on with
their domain user account, you must add the domain user account to the
Administrators group on the local machine after you have joined the machine
to the domain, and while logged onto the local machine as Administrator
-- To avoid confusing users (and even admins) it is a good idea to create
AD user accounts with different user account names than people used to have
when logging onto their individual machines.
-- New users don't need an account on their local machine and in AD too --
so when you have a new employee or user, skip the step of creating a local
machine account, unless you have a specific reason for doing so.

Hope that helps.


--
James McIllece, Microsoft

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This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.