Basically we've searched high and low for this, but haven't really got very far. We have a customer with SBS 2003, which they've nearly outgrown, and have just agreed to go full to a 2003 domain infrastructure (multiple servers, etc. etc.). Unfortunately we want to migrate the domain, as there are a large number of desktops. This means that ADMT is out, as a new domain needs to be created and then all the desktops need to be moved in this solution.

Unfortunately, as I'm sure most of you know, SBS wont play nicely (by design) along the lines of adding a new DC to the SBS domain, to replicate the AD, then decommisioning the SBS box. I have read that it is possible to get SBS to talk to another global catalog / PDC for the same domain, or similar, for approximately 14 days for this very application; but I cant find any documentation on it, and Microsoft themselves are useless. Has anyone any ideas? (note: the "transition pack" isn't applicable, as its cost ineffective in this situation)

Fordie / dumbass - tux / anyone else, have any ideas?

Sorry, out of my area(s) of expertise. If your server is suffering from oversteer or high speed instability though, I can help out there.

lol Bob, tempting, but fortunately all our hardware is either on, or overspecced to avoid "high speed instabilities"

Every time I hear about any sort of migrations on windows networks I really wonder in the absurd complexity of it. And when I make a search out of curiosity's sake to see what extra intricacies are involved (special chants, specific yoga positions, probably even planetary motion considerations) and come upon this I can only imagine (and laugh :P).

I've come across SWING before, but havent really poked at it much, because of the costs involved. However, if thats the only way to do it, perhaps more poking is required.

Usually migrating isnt too much of an issue to be honest. Its just the limitations of SBS, and circumstance of not wanting to have to make a new domain, this time

Sorry TAA, thats the reason I said go straight for full 2003, as SBS is SBS (Silly Bullshit Software ) and I estimated that they would out grow this very quickly.

Thought you'd probably say that. Unfortunately I'm not involved in the quotation's what-so-ever, I just have to deal with this shit afterwards I have thought of 2 ways to do this, but it involves a lot of work; 1 with a temporary DC using ADMT and then going from there (ala SWING), or attempting to steal the FSMO roles using ntdsutil (which I really dont want to do; everytime I've had to do this has resulted in a slightly broken network, and this may not even work, due to the way SBS works ) Either way its going to be hard work.

As an aside, this is only the second of our customers to have out-grown SBS, so its not a common thing - especially for the size customers we're targetting. We, of course, dont run SBS ourselves