(2005-11-24) Considering A Domain Rename?

For starters, a domain rename is only possible when your forest is at Forest Functional Level Windows Server 2003 and if it contains Exchange, only Exchange 2003 server WITH SP1 are supported! All other situations do not allow or support domain rename! However, I’m not sure about other MS AD enabled apps (like SMS, etc.) or even third party AD enabled apps.

The domain rename procedure is a procedure that affects YOUR COMPLETE FOREST! I would think twice before doing it or before recommending it. As a safe measure I would want to have a Disaster Recovery Plan available to recover the forest if something went wrong. If all other options are not available I would want to copy my production environment into a test environment and test test test test…. I would also test the Disaster Recovery plan to be sure it will work!

Don’t think to easy on doing a domain rename!!!

 

For more information see:

* Support WebCast: Microsoft Windows Server 2003: Implementing an Active Directory Domain Rename Operation

  –> http://support.microsoft.com/?id=819145

* Supplemental steps for using the Exchange Server Domain Rename Fixup tool together with the Windows Server 2003 domain rename tools

  –> http://support.microsoft.com/?id=842116

* Domain Rename – Rename a Windows 2003 Forest with Exchange 2003 installed

  –> http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Domain-Rename.html

* Exchange and Domain Rename Operations

  –> http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2004/08/30/222719.aspx

* Exchange System Attendant does not start after you rename a Windows Server 2003 domain

  –> http://support.microsoft.com/?id=822590

* TechNet Support WebCast: Renaming domains when Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 is in the Active Directory

  –> http://support.microsoft.com/?id=838623

*  Windows Server 2003 Active Directory Domain Rename Tools
  –> http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/downloads/domainrename.mspx

* Microsoft Exchange Server Domain Rename Fixup (XDR-Fixup)

  –> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=24b47d4a-c4b9-4031-b491-29839148a28c&displaylang=en

 

Rendom/xdr-fixup requirements:

* AD must be in forest mode 2 (Windows 2003 Native Forest mode), so this means that all DCs must be running Windows 2003, and the forest functional level changed from AD Domains & Trusts MMC snap-in.

* All Exchange servers in the org must be Exchange 2003 SP1 +

* This also means no Exchange 5.5 in the org (no ADC intra-org, no SRS)

* No Exchange server installed on DC/GC

For the limitations of rendom, see the rendom documentation. Limitations of Exchange xdr-fixup:

* Domain rename will NOT let you rename the Exchange Org

* Exchange domain rename will NOT let you merge two Exchange orgs (from different forests) into a single Exchange org.

* Exchange domain rename will NOT try to overcome any limitation of the AD rendom tool

REMARK:

DON’T USE THE TOOLS ON THE W2K3 CD!!! ALWAYS DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSIONS!!!

Cheers,
Jorge
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