Moving to a windows 2008 R2 Forest

We are preparing to add our first windows 2008 R2 domain controller. So I started collection blogs and tips on the process and what to look out for.

First is a thread from the technet forums – Moving from 2003 Active Directory to 2008 R2 Active Directory (Mixed Mode for now.)

The big thing here is to remember windows 2008 R2 is x64 only. But the Adprep EXE for x32 is included on the DVD, you?ll need to use that to run ADPREP.

Speaking of ADPREP, next up is a great post detailing what,why and how you should go about running ADPREP –

Preparing your Active Directory Infrastructure for 2008

If your also running DFS (like we are) there are some additional things you need to keep in mind. Again a post from technet forums gives some detail on this –

DFS on windows 2008 and Domain Windows 2003 R2 AD servers

If your running an older version of Exchange make sure Exchange supports the scheme version you plan on moving to ? Exchange Server Support Matrix

Finally, its the dirteam they have a bunch of post about this:

Upgrading your Active Directory to Windows Server 2008

Transitioning your Active Directory to Windows Server 2008 R2

Considerations when upgrading your Active Directory to Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2

Hope these links help you and I?ll update the post once we start the process. First thing we have to do is get SP2 on an Exhange 2003 server in China.

later,jb

UPDATE: Found another great post about adding the first 2008 R2 DC – http://sharepointgeorge.com/2009/introducing-windows-2008-r2-domain-controller/