adprep /forestprep and adprep /domainprep

In a pure Windows 2000 environment, when we want to upgrade the AD infrastructure to Windows 2003 platform, we need to extend our AD scheme in advance. We need to execute adprep /forestprep and adprep /domainprep to extend the Windows 2000 AD scheme.

Before we take the extend action, we must to check if all the DCs in AD are Windows 2000 with SP2 or above. When all DCs are ready, we can start:

  • Find the adprep.exe which included in i386 directory of Windows 2000 CD. Then run adprep /forestprep from command line. The command will be process for about 1 ~ 2 minutes, be patient.

  • At the same path, run adprep /domainprep from command line. It should be last some seconds.

  • Waiting for Group Policy refresh. If you want, you could use gpupdate /force to refresh the Ggpupdate /force

After that, we just need to add new Windows 2003 DC to exist Active Directory. All will be done.