Tag: P2V

Online P2V of domain controllers

Don’t do it or do it in DSRM. Until for various reasons you just… can’t. Unacceptable downtime, Exchange/SBS, Windows 2003 (can’t stop AD services), etc. Doesn’t matter, you just have to do the P2V online.

It’s not supported (probably) or recommended but if you really need to then (skipping obvious steps):

  1. Stop replication some time before finalizing conversion 
    repadmin /options %COMPUTERNAME% +DISABLE_OUTBOUND_REPL
repadmin /options %COMPUTERNAME% +DISABLE_INBOUND_REPL
  2. Disconnect target VM network and boot to DSRM.
  3. Set “database restored from backup” flag in registry – just in case!
    https://technet.microsoft.com/nl-nl/library/dd363545(v=ws.10).aspx
  4. Boot normally
  5. Enable replication 
    repadmin /options %COMPUTERNAME% -DISABLE_OUTBOUND_REPL
repadmin /options %COMPUTERNAME% -DISABLE_INBOUND_REPL

     

Again, not supported nor recommended but it has worked for me.