I am having trouble upgrading my domain to 2008 R2. I have 2 DC's running 2003 server, 1 is Standard Version and the other is Enterprise Version and both are X86. I have run adprep to upgrade the forest, domain, and gpprep. I have a 2008 R2 Standard edition server that I would like to promote to a DC but keep getting the message that I need to prepare the forest before I can run dcpromo.exe. What am I missing? I read somethign that told me that you cannot go cross platform, Enterprise to Standard, or is that X86 to X64?

I am having trouble upgrading my domain to 2008 R2. I have 2 DC's running 2003 server, 1 is Standard Version and the other is Enterprise Version and both are X86. I have run adprep to upgrade the forest, domain, and gpprep. I have a 2008 R2 Standard edition server that I would like to promote to a DC but keep getting the message that I need to prepare the forest before I can run dcpromo.exe. What am I missing? I read somethign that told me that you cannot go cross platform, Enterprise to Standard, or is that X86 to X64? You can't do an in-place upgrade 32-bit to 64-bit, however that isn't the problem you're experiencing. The problem is that either you have not run the adprep command on the required Windows 2003 server or that you've tried to run the 64-bit version of the command on your 32-bit Windows 2003 servers.To get round this you have to use the following commands on your main Windows 2003 server:<cddrive>\support\adprep\adprep32.exe /forestprep<cddrive>\support\adprep\adprep32.exe /domainprep-Ken | http://ken.wagnerfamily.co.uk

Hello, That's correct, You will need to prepare the forest and the domain properly. How and where did you run the forest and domain prep? Did you get any errors when you did this operation? Make sure you put the new W2K8 CD into the W2K3 domain controller which is the Schema Master, login with and ID that is a member of the Schema Admin run adprep /forestprep and then run adprep /domainprep and please post back if you have any more errors. Isaac Oben MCITP:EA, MCSE

I have run adprep from the DC that has all the roles needed to upgrade the AD. There were some errors when I forst ran the adprep and after research I removed my anti virus and ran it again and I did not see any errors. I downloaded the X86 2008 DVD to run the 32 bit adprep. I have forced replication to my other DC in the forest also. I've rerun the adprep /forestprep and /domainprep /gpprep and it give me themessage that it has already been done and no changes have been made.I hope this information helps, if you need more please reply and I'll get you what I can.Thanks, Keith

I have run adprep from the DC that has all the roles needed to upgrade the AD. There were some errors when I forst ran the adprep and after research I removed my anti virus and ran it again and I did not see any errors. I downloaded the X86 2008 DVD to run the 32 bit adprep. I have forced replication to my other DC in the forest also. I've rerun the adprep /forestprep and /domainprep /gpprep and it give me themessage that it has already been done and no changes have been made.I hope this information helps, if you need more please reply and I'll get you what I can.Thanks, Keith I didn't think there were any Windows 2008 R2 32-bit versions available, or did you just run the 2008 32bit (non-R2) version? As there is a 32bit version of the adprep command on the 64bit Windows 2008 R2 disc. Plus there are schema differences between 2008 (44) and r2 (I believe it's eitehr 47 or 48, can't remember of the top of my head).-Ken | http://ken.wagnerfamily.co.uk

Yea I downloaded the 32 bit version. I found the adprep32 on the CD and I will try that this evening. Thank you for the direction.I'll keep you posted.

Cool :)-Ken | http://ken.wagnerfamily.co.uk

Well it worked. I would have never thought to look for the 32 bit version there. So now I have a 2008 R2 DC in my forest.Thank you for all of your suggestions.Keith

We recently published an article on TechNet: How to Upgrade Domain Controllers to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee522994(WS.10).aspxIt covers the issue about new 32-bit and 64-bit versions of adprep.exe and several other issues to be aware of if you are upgrading domain controllers to Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2. We expect to continue updating the topic as we gain more experience from customer deployments. Please use the feedback linkin the upper right-hand cornerof the topic to let us know what you think of it and ways you want to see it improved. I hope it helps,Justin [MSFT]AD Documentation team

Kit Kat Ninja, Your post was music to my ears! Just what I needed to hear. This completely solved my problems: adprep32.exe was just what I needed. Now I can relax...... Thanks.