How to upgrade Domain Controller 2008 to 2012 on New Server

Hi All,
We are planning to upgrade our domain controller and exchange server 2008 to 2012 R2, so can anyone please suggest what step should be taken first. we have new server machine we are planning to install Windows 2012 R2 and create a additional domain controller
of our existing domain 2008 then transfer the FSMO roles to this server to act as a primary. after successful migration we will upgrade our exchange 2008 to 2012. please advice is there any problem to do this way.
Thanks
Agha

I was just curious about the same thing. However, I am running 32bit version of server 2008 and want to move the server 2012 r2. This will be on a machine with new hardware and all. Am just curious though if it is possible to migrate some of the
domain as to not to have to replicate everything?
Directory Services doesn't really care what version of the OS you are using. You cannot do an in-place upgrade from a 32bit box to a 64bit box.
You'll need to make your new R2 server, install AD, move the FSMOs, and demote your 2008 32bit box.
What WOULDN'T you want to replicate? That's not how AD works. It's a multimaster enviroment where ALL DCs have the same information. You can't choose which objects replicate. To do that, you'll need to clean up your AD.
Good luck.
- Chris Ream -
**Remember, if you find a post that is helpful, or is the answer, please mark it appropriately.**

Similar Messages

Upgrading domain controller from Server 2003 to Server 2012 R2, how will this affect Exchange 2010?

Hi All,
Below is an AD and Server related post that I had submitted last week. While I did receive valid responses for the post, I was advised to check with the Exchange forums for the Exchange related question in
bold. All responses are welcomed, thank you!
===========================================================
Hi All,
I am hoping that someone could perhaps provide some insight on this topic as I apparently can't seem to google the best answer.
I have recently acquired an AD domain that is running on a 2003 domain controller. I have been tasked with upgrading our existing domain structure with 2012 R2 domain controllers for our main office and remote offices.
The domain name is company.mynetwork.com, and it is the default first site name. We have multiple offices throughout the US with their own domain controllers (i.e. FL.mynetwork.com, NY.mynetwork.com, DC.mynetwork.com, etc.).
Our main office, and default first site has one domain controller (mynetdc1) running Server 2003 R2. It is also our only DNS server for the main office. It also has an additional domain controller called mynetmaster3 which is running Server 2003.
Both mynetdc1 & mynetmaster3 NTDS settings show them as global catalogs under AD Sites & Services. Both servers are also in the AD Domain Controllers OU, along with all of the other satellite office domain controllers.
Additionally, our main office is running Exchange 2010 with the latest service pack. My questions are:
Can we demote and retire mynetmaster3, then replace mynetdc1 with a newly promoted 2012 R2 global catalog domain controller without harming anything in the domain tree and interrupting connectivity to the other offices (this of course goes without saying
after a 4 hour maintenance window to get the task completed has passed)?
Should we upgrade the satellite offices first after raising the functional level for mynetdc1, or should we do the opposite (upgrade main office, then satellite offices)?
MS Exchange 2010 is heavily dependent on AD, what effect will this entire project have on our email server? What steps should we take beforehand to ensure email continuity?
Finally, is there any shame for a Net Admin to suggest that we hire an implementation specialist for this task? :)
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

As long as the operating system on your Exchange servers isn't upgraded, and as long as you do the Active Directory domain and forest updates in the supported manner (the following link is a good example -
http://blogs.msmvps.com/mweber/2012/07/30/upgrading-an-active-directory-domain-from-windows-server-2003-or-windows-server-2003-r2-to-windows-server-2012/), Exchange will happily operate behind the scenes. Exchange 2010 is supported in the Windows
forests (domain controllers, domain functional level and forest functional level) mentioned in the following TechNet article, which includes both Windows 2003 and Windows 2012.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff728623(v=exchg.150).aspx
Due to this, you should be good as long as you do the domain controller, domain, and forest upgrades carefully. Oh, and before you start each step, get a nice backup.

Upgrading Domain Controller Questions

Hello, we currently have 2 domain controllers in our environment, both with Server 2003 R2. We are looking to upgrade them one at a time to 2008 R2 but I have some questions.
Here's the environment:
Server 1 (the one we are going to upgrade first):
Server 2003 R2
Domain Controller
DHCP Server
DNS Server
Server 2 (we will be upgrading this in the near future but not just yet):
Server 2003 R2
Domain Controller
DHCP Server
DNS Server
File Server with most of the company data
We also have DNS replication set up between the two servers.
My questions:
Will we run into any issues having two domain controllers with different Operating Systems?
We would like for the domain controllers to keep the same names and IP's. Any issues with that?
How will we stop, then re-setup DNS replication between the two servers?
Any other 'gotcha's' we should be aware of?
Dan Chandler-Klein

I don't see any reason why not keeping old name and IP.
Before upgrading make sure AD has no issues:
look at the event viewer, run DCDiag, replication runs clean (repadmin /showrepl) etc.
OS has no warning/errors.
Not must but I would move the FSMO roles to another DC before demote.
Make sure applications installed on the new DC's (AV\Backup agents etc.) support Windows 2008 R2 OS.
Make sure all your network applications in your environment support working with Windows 2008 R2 DC - I recommend test it in lab first.
Make sure that the DC you are about to demote not holding CA role.
Most important:
Make sure you successfully demote the old DC and no records left in DNS.
I'm not agree with evrimicelli about DC's naming and I wouldn't go for CNAME record - this can get you in many troubles in the future.
after demote the old DC, I would rename it or remove it from the domain, than you can rename the new server with old Dc name and promote it to DC with old DCs' IP address.
I didn't understand the question about DNS replication.
What kind of DNS zone do host? if its AD integrated (and thats what you should have), you don't need to configure any replication, AD integrated DNS zone replicate as part of AD replication between your two DC's.
Please take a moment to Vote as Helpful and/or Mark as Answer where applicable. Thanks.

Change NETBIOS (Computer Name) of a computer under a domain controller by SCCM 2012 colsole

Is it possible to change NETBIOS (Computer Name) of a computer under a domain controller via SCCM 2012 Console?
example:
Domain Name: viyella.com
current Computer (FQDN host) name: vtgit-shohal.viyella.com
New Computer (FQDN host) name: vtgit-moin.viyella.com
if so, I will organized all computer of my organization and managed.
please help.
Thanks,
Shohal Bhuiyan
Shohal Bhuiyan

Hi,
Netdom is
a command-line tool that is built into Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It is available if you have the Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) server role installed. It is also available if you install the Active Directory
Domain Services Tools that are part of the Remote Server Administration Tools (RSAT).
Netdom renamecomputer
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc788029.aspx
We
are trying to better understand customer views on social support experience, so your participation in this
interview project would be greatly appreciated if you have time.
Thanks for helping make community forums a great place.

I just upgraded from my 2008 MacBook to a new Macbook Pro. How do I get my time capsule to work on my new MacBook? I did data migration, but the time capsule did not pick it up. Any ideas?

I just upgraded from my 2008 MacBook to a new Macbook Pro. How do I get my time capsule to work on my new MacBook? I did data migration, but the time capsule did not pick it up. Any ideas?

If you migrated all the info from time machine to your new MBP. The TM will usually ask to connect to the old backups.. sorry I am not sure is this what you want to do.. Personally I think you start a fresh backup.
BTW Time Capsule does not do anything.. it is a dumb hard disk in a box.. it is TM that does everything.
Look at B5 and B6 here about connecting to your backup.
http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html

Install Domain Controller, Active Directory, RemoteApps on Single Server?

Have a server that I want to experiment with RemoteApps. Documentation I have read state you need to have a Domain Controller setup with AD on one server, and have a second server to install all the RemoteApps requirements. Is this true or can
this all be done on one server.
If I need a separate server for the Domain Controller and Active Directory, can I assume that a low end server would be sufficient? Or would using Hyper-V with a single hardware server and create two virtual machines: one as the DC/AD, and the other
to run Remote Apps be a possible solution. Any advice?

it really depends to be honest. I'd probably go something like this though:
One Small physical server to act as a domain controller - you could put DHCP on this too
One or Two physical, quite powerful servers to act as Hyper-V hosts - these can be domain joined.
Then for your VM's create the following:
1 x additional domain controller
For remote desktop services:
1 x Remote Desktop Session Host
1 x Connection Broker
1 x Gateway and web server
For additional services
1 or 2 x Exchange
1 x sharepoint
1 x IIS
but it really depends what you want to achieve.
The benefit from Virtual machines is that you can keep separate virtual servers for separate applications.
If you have two hosts you could then replicate the virtual machines between them if you wanted some layer of fault tolerance.
Hope this helps you a bit more. And thanks for positive blog feedback - its appreciated.
Regards,
Denis Cooper
MCITP EA - MCT
Help keep the forums tidy, if this has helped please mark it as an answer
My Blog
LinkedIn:

How do I best integrate existing laptops for a new server? Can I use the existing home folders on the laptops and make them into Network Users?

How do I best integrate existing laptops for a new server? Can I use the existing home folders on the laptops and make them into Network Users?

Yes it will work. I've done it for a few users in my small office. As with anything, there are quirks that you may or may not experience. Most quirks are app-related, due to app developers hard-coding absolute paths into their apps for things like temp files (Photoshop). Strategies for resolving these sorts of quirks can be found via google. You would probably have seen these quirks already when using server-based home folders for your kids. If you haven't noticed them, then you're probably fine.
The tech note you cited should be fine. It doesn't explicitly say so, but you'll need to enable ssh on your server, at least temporarily, so you can upload your home folder to the server using scp, rsync, etc. Don't try to copy the files up to the server via Finder.
Once all your files are transferred to the server and in the right place, make sure to chown them on the server, so they are owned by the userID you created for yourself on the server.
As with anything this involved, make a good backup of your laptop first.
Note I have one user that isn't too happy with the responsiveness of the periodic mobile home syncing. She has about a decade of e-mail in her home folder, probably 50 to 100 emails per day, many with attachments. Mobile home syncing takes a long time to check and sync this huge tree of itty-bitty files, eevn with server-side file tracking turned on. The other users are happy.
The nice thing about mobile home syncing is that when a user "graduates" to an age where they've earned their own laptop, you can change them from a server home user to a mobile home user, with a minimum of fuss. Also, if you lose or break a laptop, you can add a new replacement laptop to your network, and pull-down a replica of the home folder from the server, with almost no downtime.

How to test domain controller on upgraded Win Server 2008 R2

The windows team recently upgraded the development environment for the domain controller from 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 and I am to test the Idm functionality on this upgraded version. Our current configuration is that the DC and Idm gateway runs on different machines. To test this new DC, i want to install the idm gateway on that server and run some onboarding and termination test cases just to make sure if the AD connection is working on the upgraded DC. But i am getting ’Input/output error’ when i try to install the service and from the documentation it says 'The most common cause of this is that you do not have rights to work with this service.'. The server admin tried installing the gateway with his id as well and it failed. He tested installing in on the 2003 version of DC and it worked, so its not a matter of permission (i think..)...
Does anyone have any better idea on how to test an upgrade of a DC from version 2003 to 2008 R2? Any help in this matter is appreciated. We are running Idm 8.1 on a Windows platform and an upgrade to OW 8.1.1. Patch 2 is also in the works..
Thanks in advance.

I may have found a workaround. Can you try to change the "compatibility mode" in 2008 R2 to "Windows XP SP3" and see if it will install?
Admittedly I have not done this myself so I'm not entirely sure where or how it's done, but I have confirmation it resolves the issue from others who have faced it.

Upgrading domain from 2008 R2 to 2012 R2

I am looking to upgrade my domain from server 2008 R2 to 2012 R2. We have 10 remote sites, each with a single physical ESXi host hosting 2 vms, 1 2008 R2 vm with the ADDS/DHCP/DNS/File Services (user home drives) roles and the second 2008 R2 vm
runs WDS/MDT and a couple applications. At our main site we have a physical 2008 R2 DC which holds all the FSMO roles, a vm with the ADDS/DHCP/DNS/File Services roles, and another vm running WDS/MDT.
I've gathered from my research that Microsoft recommends clean installs when upgrading DCs but since our DCs are also file servers that's not an ideal course of action for us, it'd be a lot of additional steps. My plan at this point
is to bring up a new physical 2012 R2 server, make it a DC, transfer the FSMO roles to it, then demote and retire the current physical 2008 R2 server. For the virtual DCs, since they are also file servers, I'm leaning towards in-place upgrades
on them, unless anyone would advise against.
The other thing I'm considering is creating a 2012 R2 DC at each remote site, then demoting the current 2008 R2 DC, leaving some combination of DHCP/File Services on it, then run an in-place on it to 2012 R2. This would requre another Windows license
though since our physical hosts are not on Hyper-v.
For the virtual servers running WDS/MDT, I personally prefer an in-place so I don't have to move the MDT deployment share, but I'm open to suggestions.
What are your recommendations? Which server should I upgrade first? How much time should I allow between each DC upgrade? I appreciate the help.

As per recommendations, A DC should be solely utilized for AD/DNS/GC & if environment is small for DHCP. The problem in using DC for other purpose arise during upgrade scenario, when you have to demote the DC or performance. Demoting the DC is very simple,
but if its running with additional role, it becomes challenging, if demotion has to be performed forcefully.
Secondly, from the security point, its not a great idea to run DC with other roles esp file servers, if there is any infected file then the whole domain can be compromised or infected.
What is more relevant in upgrade is testing the applications before you perform or upgrade the schema. If there is no issues then you can perform the upgrade based on your convenience. But necessary documentation & testing prior & post has to be
followed.
My personal recommendation would be upgrade the schema(surely test the schema upgrade in lab before you do in production), create a new server either VM or physical, configure it as an DC & transfer all FSMO role & slowly try to segregation between
DC & non DC servers.
Yes, i know it will cost additional licensing burden, but from the environment point of view it will provide you an ease of administration & troubleshooting.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/chrisavis/archive/2013/10/01/performing-an-in-place-upgrade-of-server-2008-r2-to-server-2012-r2.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2013/06/18/step-by-step-active-directory-migration-from-windows-server-2008-r2-to-windows-server-2012.aspx
Awinish Vishwakarma - MVP
My Blog: awinish.wordpress.com
Disclaimer This posting is provided AS-IS with no warranties/guarantees and confers no rights.

How to upgrade Domain - 2003 to 2012 R2 - task sequence

Could someone please sanity check this task sequence? I need to upgrade a 2003 domain to 2012 R2 and would appreciate a second set of eyes. thx.
Goal:
1. standup two new 2012 R2 DCs
2. decomm three old DCs
3. raise DFL/FFL to 2012 R2
Current DFL/FFL = 2003 (one site, one domain, 3 DCs, 400 users)
3 Existing DCs (all to be decommed):
OldDC1 = Svr2003 Std Ed SP2 x64 (holds all FSMO roles, GC=yes)
OldDC2 = Svr2003 Ent Ed SP1 x86 (holds no FSMO roles, GC=yes)
OldDC3 = Svr2003 Std Ed SP2 x64 (holds no FSMO roles, GC=no)
New DCs to be added:
NewDC1 Svr2012 R2
NewDC2 Svr2012 R2
Proposed task Sequence:
* build and patch OS, then add ADDS role to NewDC1 and NewDC2 (do not yet add servers to existing domain)
* in the network config of new DCs, set the DNS server IP to the IP of OldDC1
* when installing ADDS, I will be prompted to run Adprep.exe - it will be run as part of installing ADDS - this will update existing domain schema as needed.
* add NewDC1 and NewDC2 to existing domain
* in the network config of the new DCs, set the DNS server IP to that of the local server
* make both GCs, make both DNS servers
* distribute FSMO roles thusly:
* DC1 = PDCE, RID (more frequently used roles)
* DC2 = SM, DNM, IM (rarely used roles)
* run dcdiag.exe commands to verify functionality
* power off OldDCs one at a time, waiting 24 hours between each shut down
* raise DFL/FFL to 2012 R2 after all old DCs are decommed

revised and updated
Goal
1. standup two new 2012 R2 DCs
2. decomm three old DCs
3. raise DFL/FFL to 2012 R2
Current DFL/FFL = 2003 (one site, one domain, 3 DCs, 400 users)
3 Existing DCs (all to be decommed):
OldDC1 = Svr2003 Std Ed SP2 x64 (holds all FSMO roles, GC=yes)
OldDC2 = Svr2003 Ent Ed SP1 x86 (holds no FSMO roles, GC=yes)
OldDC3 = Svr2003 Std Ed SP2 x64 (holds no FSMO roles, GC=no)
New DCs to be added:
NewDC1 Svr2012 R2
NewDC2 Svr2012 R2
1. Assessment of current AD infrastructure
* http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh994618.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2012/09/03/introducing-the-first-windows-server-2012-domain-controller.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askpfeplat/archive/2013/06/03/upgrade-active-directory-to-windows-server-2012-phase-1-assessment.aspx
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/archive/2012/07/30/upgrading-an-active-directory-domain-from-windows-server-2003-or-windows-server-2003-r2-to-windows-server-2012.aspx
2. build and patch OS on NewDCs; in the network config of new DCs, set the DNS server IP to the IP of OldDC1
3. add AD DS role to NewDC1 and NewDC2 (do not yet add servers to existing domain)
* NOTE: when installing AD DS, you will be prompted to run Adprep.exe. It will be run as part of installing AD DS. This will update existing domain schema as needed
4. add NewDC1 and NewDC2 to existing domain, promote to domain controllers, add to existing domain at 2003 DFL/FFL.
5. make both DCs GCs, transfer/distribute FSMO roles
* DC1 = PDCE, RID (more frequently used roles)
* DC2 = SM, DNM, IM (rarely used roles)
* http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324801/en-us
6. verify time service on OldDCs are syncing with current DC1 (PDCE)
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/archive/2010/06/27/time-configuration-in-a-windows-domain.aspx
7. run dcdiag.exe commands to verify functionality, address any issues
8. Make new DCs DNS servers
* in the network config of the new DCs, set the DNS server IP to that of the local server
9. retest with dcdiag
10. decomm OldDCs
* reconfigure clients/servers so they no longer point to the OldDCs/DNS
* disconnect network cable from old DCs and test with various clients, reboot clients, retest
* remove GC from old DCs, (also remove DNS role?), then run dcpromo to demote them
* verify that OldDC machine accounts have automatically moved from the DCs OU to Computers container
* check DNS management console in NewDCs, verify all entries from the old DCs are no longer present, delete manually if nec'y
* check AD sites and services and delete the old DCs if nec'y
11. raise DFL/FFL to 2012 R2 after all old DCs are decommed

Remove domain controller 2008 from active directory

Hi,
I have 2 DC 2008R2 & i have 2 ts one of them don't get the GPO i do everything i found that my 2 dc don't replicate good i can see the different on sysvol folder.
After that i explain my self, My question if i remove the dc (its not the fsmo dc its the second), and after removing i add this dc ?
I need to check some checks before ?
After removing i need to delete from the dns record
?After Adding the same dc to the domain i need to check something ?
Thanks
Zahi

Hi,
>i want to remove my dc and replace him with new dc.
You can add a new DC to a domain, and then remove the DC that you want to remove.
To add a DC to a domain, after add server to a domain, we can run dcpromo to install AD.
After server 2012, Adprep.exe commands run automatically as needed as part of the AD DS installation process.
For more detailed information about Adprep.exe, you can refer to the following link:
Running Adprep.exe
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd464018(v=WS.10).aspx
For detailed steps about how to Removing a Domain Controller from a Domain, you can refer to the following link:
Removing a Domain Controller from a Domain
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771844(v=WS.10).aspx
Best Regards,
Erin

Domain controller 2008 Server with SP2

Here is a real issue which i cannot track down what is causing it.
It appears that in windows 2008 Server running DHCP, DNS and AD i am getting some weird errors on the clients.
The client machines are all Windows 7 Professional x64.
The Issue is that the Domain controller seems to disappear as the logon server from the client after a few days. On some it indicates that there was no logon server available, but still logs in.. Which should be impossible since i have group policy configured
to block the ability of logon without a logon server.
The issue with this, is that over time, the desktops seem to go rogue, they no longer populate the information as to password expiration, and at times don't allow the clients to access the network shares.
The security log, shows hit and miss as to if it sees them log into the domain.
the weird issue is that if you log out, switch user, and change the users password, then log back into the desktop with domain\username and a new password the issue goes away for about 10 days.. then re-appears and causes all sorts of fun issues on the domain.
I took another step and decided that i would give a shot to building a clone test network, using a cloned image of the Domain controller, and it doesn't seem to happen on that side..The test network just has less PC's but they are all the same hardware..
Here is what i have troubleshot so far:
DNS looks fine.. no errors or issues..
DHCP looks fine, no duplicates etc..
AD has all the information correctly, and the security log looks fine, most of the time..
Windows updates are all up to date
All desktops have logon scripts, but i have removed the cached data from the management console (Cred manager)
Modified Group policy and forced it across the network.. Can see the GPResult from the clients and they have the updated settings, but the clients don't seem to care..
Group policy is set to wait till network comes up and require a domain controller to log into the client desktop.. This sometimes works, sometimes does not, it was done to see if the problem was happening on other machines, there are about 15 total out of
47 currently having the issue.
All the desktops are fresh installs, not ghosted images, not clones, or something you would need to sysprep.
Thoughts?
Rob

Hello,
please post an unedited ipconfig /all from the DC/DNS servers and a client with the problems.
Best regards
Meinolf Weber
MVP, MCP, MCTS
Microsoft MVP - Directory Services
My Blog: http://blogs.msmvps.com/MWeber
Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.
Twitter:

How to redirect domain controller address to another one without changing IP Helper

Hi All
Basically we have been told that our domain controller's address is going to change, we have many switches 200+ that have the current address as the IP Helper address. The topology is basically a core 6509 that goes out to approx 45 distribution switches 3560s that then have multiple access switches hanging off 3560s, 2950s and 2960s. There are also many workstations that have the domain controllers IP statically assigned.
My question is is there a way that this server can be decomisioned and replaced with a new one with a different IP without having to change all of the devices IP Helper address static DNS etc. but to just redirect requests for that address to another at a higher level? Like say the core receives requests for the old IP and redirects requests to the new address? We have tried suggesting they keep the same IP for the new server but it's not going to happen.
thanks

You can use NAT to do that. Be careful though because that is really a band-aid and not a resolution to the problem.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk648/tk361/tk438/tsd_technology_support_sub-protocol_home.html

Use old domain controller AD user profile with new domain (profile changed)

Dear All,
I have built Win Server 2012 for Domain migration from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2012. I have tested all thing on VMware including user creation and tested Domain join using power shell for Win 7 and .VBs batch file for Win XP computers all thing
are working fine.
Let 1st I introduce my current environment. I have existing Win Server 2003 domain controller (abc.com) with 130 client computers and 200 users I am going to plan migrate my current environment to Win server 2012 Domain (xyz.com) Keep in mind that Domain
name is changed but Domain Controller (Server) names are same i.e MY-PDC . I have tested domain join on multiple computers using existing clone of client computers and create all existing users using .csv file and power shell with required
credentials and OU.I am facing the user profile issue when I join domain and login with existing user which was previously the user of same computer the required profile does not login and computer creates new user profile in Document and Settings section
of Win XP.
I need your expert opinions because copy old profile data and create new outlook profile for each user is a big headache for any one. Hope you people can understand and help me in this issue.
Please provide best answer and result on priority I will be thankful to all of you.
Regards,
Arsalan

Hi Arsalan,
Please check if USMT can help you to achieve this target.
User State Migration Tool 4.0 User's
Guide
Meanwhile, please also refer to following articles and check if can help you.
How
to Migrate Windows User Profile to New Account
Keeping user old domain profile
Please Note: Since the web site is not hosted by Microsoft, the link may change without notice. Microsoft
does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.
If anything I misunderstand or any update, please don’t hesitate to let us know.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Justin Gu

Old domain controller crashed. Created a new one..having to rejoin computers to domain..easier way to do this?

I had a single domain controller. It has crashed. I had to create a new domain controller with all the same existing information from the old server..same domain name, server name, and IP. Im having issues with desktops. Everything is setup on the server.
The desktops however I need to rejoin them to the domain and get them to start synching properly. But when I do this, the profile is resetting itself to a new profile. How can I keep the same profile with the same documents. Or am I out of luck on this and
have to recreate the profiles. I have had to recreate the profiles so far, but do not want to do this for about 5 computers because there is way to much software and work that will need to be involved in moving these profiles. Any shortcut for these computers
to automatically see this domain server and synch to it? Everything is identical to the old server. The old server is inaccessible.
The new servers domain name is the same, IP address is the same, and computer name is the same. AD running with all identical information. DNS installed.
Let me know if anyone has some advice on here.

There's unfortunately a lot more involved than names, domain names and IP addresses.
Most of those are linked to long numbers such as "SID"s and "GUID"s in the background that actually govern the interaction between clients and servers (authentication for one).
Without the same SIDs and GUID, I fear there will be no end to your problems.
That's why either a second domain controller or a good backup are so important.
Please mark as helpful if you find my contribution useful or as an answer if it does answer your question. That will encourage me - and others - to take time out to help you.

How to upgrade Domain Controller 2008 to 2012 on New Server

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