When upgrading servers that run Windows NT 4, review the system hardware, network services, and application software on the server. You must verify that the hardware will run Windows Server 2003, determine which Windows Server 2003 product is needed, and identify the required network services. You also must check for configuration issues, such as whether the Windows NT 4 server is using a fault-tolerant drive configuration.
When preparing to upgrade servers running Windows NT 4, you might find server hardware that is incompatible and/or that would provide marginal performance for running Windows Server 2003. This is because the requirements to operate Windows NT 4 (486/33, 16 MB of RAM, 124 MB of disk space) are substantially lower than the hardware requirements to run Windows Server 2003. Windows Server 2003 hardware requirements demand a minimum of a Pentium 133-MHz processor (Datacenter Edition, however, requires at least a 400-MHz processor), 128 MB of RAM, and 1.5 GB of hard disk space (2 GB for an upgrade). Because adapters in servers that run Windows NT 4 are less likely to be supported than equivalent hardware in servers that run Windows 2000, you should closely evaluate compatibility issues by checking the Windows Server Catalog at http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/catalog/server and Microsoft's Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/search.mspx.
You can and should check the compatibility of server hardware prior to upgrading to Windows Server 2003. You can check hardware compatibility by using either of the following methods:
Type winnt32 /Checkupgradeonly at the command line (in the I386 folder on the Windows Server 2003 distribution CD).
Select the System Compatibility option on the Setup menu.
Regardless of whether you use the preceding compatibility checks, Setup will perform the compatibility analysis at the beginning of the upgrade and will report the results on-screen and store them in the %SystemRoot% folder (in the Upgrade.txt file).
If the server hardware includes a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) hard disk drive subsystem, Windows Server 2003 might not provide drivers to support it, and you might need to use a driver from the vendor of the SCSI subsystem. To use a vendor-supplied driver during Setup, you must have it on a floppy disk. Press F6 at the beginning of the setup process (a "Press F6" message is displayed on screen) to tell Setup to use this alternative SCSI driver.
Tip
Determine driver compatibility
When it is not clear whether your SCSI or other mass storage device driver will be compatible with Windows Server 2003, you can determine this by beginning the installation process. Setup will detect whether it recognizes the mass storage device hardware and has a device driver for it; if it does not, it will stop and display an error regarding the disk or controller.
For each server running Windows NT 4 that you are upgrading, evaluate the existing operating system and determine to which version of Windows Server 2003 you can upgrade.
To select a version, assess the following:
If upgrading from Windows NT 4 Server, you can upgrade to either Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition, or Enterprise Edition.
If upgrading from Windows NT 4 Server Enterprise Edition, you must upgrade to Enterprise Edition.
If upgrading an earlier version, such as Windows NT 3.51, you must upgrade to Windows NT 4 and then upgrade to Windows Server 2003.
All four versions of Windows Server 2003 (Standard, Enterprise, Datacenter, and Web) run on the Intel 32-bit platform, yet only the Enterprise and Datacenter versions run on the Intel Architecture 64 (IA-64) platform.
Tip
Only a limited subset of Terminal Services functionality is supplied in Standard Edition—for full Terminal Services functionality, the Enterprise Edition of Windows Server 2003 is required.
Inside Out: Datacenter Edition is not an upgrade option
Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition, is not available as a stand-alone operating system, and it is not available as an upgrade product. The Datacenter Edition is original equipment manufacturer (OEM)–provided only, installed and configured on vendor-supplied hardware (from vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and many others).
Managing disk partitions in Windows NT differs from managing them in Windows Server 2003, and NTFS partitions are converted during installation (with backward compatibility supported for file allocation table [FAT] and FAT32 partitions).
Even though only 1.5 GB of disk space is required for a new installation, a little more than 2 GB of disk space is required to upgrade (thus, you cannot upgrade Windows NT server installations on FAT partitions, because doing so exceeds the partition boundaries for the FAT partition).
Windows NT 4 fault-tolerance configurations—mirroring (redundant array of independent disks [RAID] 1) and disk striping with parity (RAID 5)—are not supported by Windows Server 2003. Prior to upgrading Windows NT 4 servers that use these methods, verify you have a backup of the data contained on the fault-tolerant volumes, and then disable the faulttolerant configuration.
Windows NT disk partitions are now referred to as basic disk (meaning, not dynamic) partitions. Beginning in Microsoft Windows 2000 (and including Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Server 2003), the use of dynamic disk partitions became available. Dynamic disk partitions cannot be modified during upgrade.
When you're ready to begin upgrading your Windows NT 4 domain controllers, after verifying that you can and want to upgrade the server hardware, begin the process by backing up your domain controllers and taking at least one updated BDC offline for the duration of the upgrade process. Keep this offline BDC as a rollback server in case of serious upgrade errors resulting in an inoperative primary domain controller (PDC). Depending upon the criticality of your existing domain infrastructure, you might want to have multiple backups set aside for rapid recovery of your existing network functionality. For the same reason that you make and keep redundant backup tapes, when upgrading domains it makes sense to keep redundant BDCs (at least long enough to verify a successful upgrade).
Upgrade the PDC To upgrade the Windows NT 4 domain controllers on your network, begin by upgrading the PDC and allow time to assess whether it has been upgraded correctly.
Upgrading BDCs After the PDC is upgraded, next upgrade all of the BDCs.
Inside Out: Unlike Windows NT 4, domain controllers now require DNS
Windows NT 4 was based on NetBIOS network operations, yet this is no longer the case for Windows networking. Beginning in Windows 2000 and continuing in Windows Server 2003, Windows network operations are based on using DNS as the core location service for everything—from domain controllers and global catalogs, to Kerberos servers and other network services. To locate network services, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 use service resource records, enabling identification of the Internet Protocol (IP) address and ports used to support Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) network services. If your Windows NT domain already has DNS deployed, you must delegate the DNS zone for the new Windows Server 2003 domain before upgrading the PDC.
Once all Windows NT 4 domain controllers have been upgraded to Windows Server 2003, assess and define the operations master roles for each of the domain controllers. Windows Server 2003 domain controllers can perform in a variety of operational roles. In fact, every Active Directory forest and domain must supply domain controllers performing the operations master roles.
The required forest roles are as follows:
Schema Master A forest-wide role that manages updates to the schema within Active Directory
Domain Naming Master A forest-wide role that manages the addition or removal of Active Directory domains
The required domain roles are as follows:
RID Master A domain-wide role that manages the allocation of RIDs, which are combined with the domain security identifier (SID) to uniquely identify objects in the directory.
Infrastructure Master A domain-wide role that is responsible for managing references from local directory objects to objects in other domains.
PDC Emulator A domain-wide role that provides backward compatibility to clients running earlier versions of Windows (supporting both NTLM and Kerberos authentication) and also provides time synchronization.
Global catalog Although not one of the roles identified as an operations master, the global catalog is a required role performed by at least one domain controller in every forest (and commonly implemented with at least one global catalog per site). A global catalog contains a reference to, and a partial attribute set for, every object in the Active Directory forest.
In addition to the operations master roles and global catalog there is a server role involved in managing intersite replication for Active Directory. Servers supporting intersite replication are referred to as bridgehead servers.
The Windows NT 4 security groups are upgraded to related groups in Windows Server 2003 as follows:
Windows NT 4 local groups become domain local groups.
Windows NT 4 global groups become global groups.
Note
Clients running earlier versions of the Windows operating system continue to work with the upgraded groups, yet they see universal groups as global groups.
Troubleshooting: Domain local groups are not correctly displayed in Windows NT 4
Windows Server 2003 domain local groups cannot be correctly referenced by Windows NT 4 administrative tools used on member servers running earlier versions of the Windows operating system. You can use administrative tools in the Windows Server 2003 Administration Tools pack (Adminpak.msi file in the I386 folder on the product CD or %SystemRoot%System32 folder after installation) to display the local groups and manage them on servers running earlier versions of the Windows operating system.
Upgrading a Windows NT 4 domain begins by creating or verifying adequate backups and establishing a private network.
Back up the PDC Prior to beginning the actual upgrade process of the Windows NT 4 PDC, verify that you have tested backups and (at least one) operational BDC for the domain taken offline.
Create an isolated network You might want to take the upgrade off of your enterprise network (or do the upgrade during off-peak hours), so as to prevent user, application, and service access to the domain controller during the upgrade process.
When you are ready to begin the upgrade process, start Windows Setup from a Windows NT 4 command line, and run Windows Server 2003 Setup (Winnt32) either from the product CD or from a network distribution folder.
During the upgrade, Setup will run the Active Directory Installation Wizard, which performs the following tasks:
Prompts you to create a new forest or join an existing forest and to create a new domain tree or join an existing one
Establishes the directory datastore, Kerberos, which establishes parent–child trust
Copies schema, configuration, and domain directory partitions from the parent domain
Copies security principals stored in the Security Account Manager (SAM) into the directory and converts groups as discussed previously by establishing corresponding accounts in Active Directory. User and global group accounts are put into the Active Directory Users container, computer accounts are put into the Computers container, and Windows NT 4 local groups are put in the Builtin container. These container objects (Users, Computers, and Builtin) are not organizational units (OUs) and are not subject to administrative changes (moving, deleting, renaming).
When the upgrade of the PDC has been completed, you can commence with upgrading the BDCs until all domain controllers are running Windows Server 2003.
Tip
A Windows NT 4 PDC that has been upgraded to Windows Server 2003 is able to continue to replicate security principal changes to Windows NT 4 BDCs.
Once all domain controllers are upgraded (and replication has completed), proceed with upgrading member servers.
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Upgrading Windows NT applications
Prior to upgrading existing Windows NT applications, look at the Relnotes.htm file in the Docs folder of the Windows Server 2003 product CD. You can also test the compatibility of applications with Windows Server 2003 by using the Application Compatibility Toolkit (available at the Microsoft Web site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/compatibility). You can also use the Program Compatibility Wizard to test and enable compatibility settings that might allow applications to operate correctly. Some applications, such as disk management tools, developed for earlier versions of the Windows Server operating system will not work correctly even in compatible modes and could pose risks to the integrity of the installation.