Forum Discussion
Migrating from Server 2003 to Server 2019 using Storage Migration Service
That's correct, you cannot introduce a 2019 domain controller in a 2003 domain. DFL needs to be at least 2008 R2 and older FRS technology needs to have been migrated to DFSR. Which is why I mentioned the possibility of using hyper-v, give yourself more instances of windows to work with. To the issue I think the document was meant more for member server to member server migration, the domain controller adds a level of unexpected security and complications to the process. Might want to do it old school, add the File and Storage role, then do the migration of files using robocopy, otherwise I'd suggest starting a support case here with product support.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hub/4343728/support-for-business
Dave PatrickThanks Dave, the more I dig into this, the less it seems that the claim of SMS working with Server 2003 can possibly be true. I found this document https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/manage/windows-admin-center/understand/faq that clearly states:
"What versions of Windows Server can I manage with Windows Admin Center?
Windows Admin Center is optimized for Windows Server 2019 to enable key themes in the Windows Server 2019 release: hybrid cloud scenarios and hyper-converged infrastructure management in particular. Although Windows Admin Center will work best with Windows Server 2019, it supports managing a variety of versions that customers already use: Windows Server 2012 and newer are fully supported. There is also limited functionality for managing Windows Server 2008 R2."
Yet the current documentation for SMS relies on Windows Admin Center.
Further down I find this: "Windows Admin Center relies on PowerShell capabilities and platform technologies that don’t exist in Windows Server 2008 R2 and earlier, making full support infeasible. Windows Server 2008/2008 R2 are approaching end of support in January 2020 so Microsoft recommends customers https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server-2008.:
It would seem that the admin center document and the SMS documentation are at odds with each other. The documentation for SMS should be updated with either a) a removal of the statement of it being capable of migrating from Server 2003 or b) define the exact requirements needed for a successful migration from Server 2003. The current document defines an impossible set of actions for this scenario. Quite disappointing. :-( Thanks for the pointer to support, but I'm not part of some huge organization that can write Microsoft a huge check every year for support. It's just me and a ton of conflicting documentation. :-(
For what it's worth, I too was having problems figuring out how to seamlessly migrate my 2003 file server to a newer OS (2019 server).
What I found is that the Windows Admin Center "CANNOT" manage the 2003 server but it "CAN" still perform the migration of shared folders and files from the 2003 server to 2019.
You mentioned something about being joined to the domain and that it was a 2003 domain. I believe you can join any OS to any domain but you cannot make newer Operating Systems (2019 server) a Domain Controller, unless you update the domain schema, etc. which may cause issues for your 2003 domain controller.
However, if all you are trying to do is migrate the file shares from 2003 server to Windows 2019 server, you should be able to do this. In the environment that I just did it on successfully, all servers were joined to the domain.
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