I have an external DNS that I am upgrading the hardware and changing to Windows Server 2008 R2 from Server 2003. What I was planning on doing was setting up the Server 2008 R2 box as a secondary zone and doing a zone transfer for froward & reverse lookups from the primary Server 2003 machine. I then planned on changing the name and IP of the Server 2008 R2 machine to what the Server 2003 box was (after pulling the Server 2003 box off the network) as well as setting the 2008 R2 box as the primary. Niether of the servers will be connected to a domain at any point during or after this process. There has been no information that I have found that states that this isn't going to work, any ideas?

You can proceed like you mentioned without no problems. The steps are the following: 1- Add your 2008 R2 server as a secondary DNS server that hosts secondary zones for your 2003 server zones. This Microsoft article should help 2- Remove your Windows 2003 server 3- Make your 2008 R2 server DNS zones primary ones 4- Change your 2008 R2 server IP address to the IP address that your windows 2003 server had 5- Use the nslookup utility to make sure that all is okay Remark: I recommand to you to backup your windows 2003 server so that all will be okay without problems This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties or guarantees , and confers no rights. Microsoft Student Partner Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Security Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer: Security Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration

Hello, Your plan looks good, but will recommend you back up your current DNS if it is not AD Integrated, because with AD integrated, the information is store in Active Directory. I will also recommend that you add the W2K8 R2 as a Primary (Not Secondary as mentioned) with the same configurations as the W2K3. Once that is done, temporarily power off the W2K3 DNS server and test to make sure the new W2K8 R2 can successfully handle and process DNS requests. If that is good , then you can proceed with the other steps.Isaac Oben MCITP:EA, MCSE