Upgrading a Windows 2000 Active
Directory (AD) schema before
installing Windows Server 2003
Release 2 (R2) domain controllers
(DCs) proved a little tricky. The
upgrade procedure calls for running
the Adprep utility, once in the forest on the forest schema master DC
(Adprep /forestprep) and again on
each Win2K domain infrastructure
master (Adprep /domainprep).
Having previously upgraded a Windows Server 2003 R1 server, I used the same
procedure. I first ran the command
D:\I386\adprep.exe /forestprep
from Windows Server 2003 R2 CDROM 1. The procedure ran OK. Because this was
a single DC environment, I didn't have to wait for replication to occur. I then
ran the command
D:\I386\adprep.exe /domainprep
on the same DC. Again, this was a single DC environment, so the Flexible Single-Master
Operation (FSMO) roles of schema master and infrastructure master were both
on the same DC.
The next step is running the Dcpromo tool on the new DC. This procedure includes
choosing whether to install a new domain or install an additional DC in the
same domain. I chose the latter and finished the installation. After running
for a little while, the execution stopped and I received the error message,
The version of the Active Directory schema of the source forest is not compatible
with the version of Active Directory on this computer.
This wasn't good. I reran both utilities, and they both reported to have been
run before. I then started searching for a way to verify that the changes in
AD had actually occurred. I found the Microsoft article "Operations that
are performed by the Adprep.exe utility when you add a Windows Server 2003 domain
controller to a Windows 2000 domain or forest" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309628),
which details the changes made by both procedures.
Further research led me to an online discussion about the same error I experienced.
It turns out that the Adprep utility on CD-ROM 1 of Windows Server 2003 R2 isn't
the latest release. It will bring AD up to version 30, whereas the R2 version
of AD is 31.
Fortunately, the solution to this problem is simple. There's a newer version
of the Adprep utility on Windows Server 2003 R2 CD-ROM 2 that you can use. After
I ran the newer version, the adprep.exe /forestprep procedure reported a successful
upgrade from version 30 to 31. Just to make sure, I also ran adprep. exe /domainprep,
but it reported no changes necessary. After the upgrade to version 31, the Dcpromo
tool ran just fine.
—Thomas Paulsen
See Associated Figure
End of Article
