We recently decided to upgrade our 2003 Schema to support 2008. We already have a number of 2008 Servers in place, but the schema upgrade gives us the obvious advantage of being able to designate the 2008 servers as domain controllers. All our new builds are 2008, so this is starting to be a priority.
"Upgrading The Schema" is slightly worrying, no matter how many back-ups you have, and no matter how well you follow instructions.
We did have issue on our student network, and ended up having to log a call with MS, who were able to fix the problem via some manual changes to Active Directory. This only affected the schema upgrade enabling read only domain controller functionality. I'm not sure we will ever use a read only DC, but perhaps its something to consider for an off campus office.
Anyway, the steps for upgrading your 2003 Schema to 2008 are;
adprep.exe /forestprep Schema Master once per forest
adprep.exe /domainprep Infrastructure Master twice (once per domain)
adprep.exe /domainprep /gpprep Infrastructure Master twice (once per domain)
adprep.exe /rodcprep * Domain Naming Master once per forest
* Optional when you want to deploy Read Only Domain Controllers
The adprep tools are contained on the server 2008 DVD.... I'd suggest copying this to your DC's rather than running from the DVD drive. I'd also suggest checking your schema backups, and making sure that servers are running on a UPS.....you never know.
As a side note, I'll give a small plug for some software we have recently used by Doverstones;
http://www.dovestones.com/
FSMO Role: Ideal for the above situation if you dont know which servers hold roles.
Its simple and free!
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